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THE FATHEES 



OF 



GEEEK PHILOSOPHY 



BY 



R D. HAMPDEN, D.D. 

BISHOP OF HEREFORD. 



EDINBUEGH: 

ADAM AND CHAELES BLACK. 

1862. 

[The Right of Translation is Reserved.] 






PRINTED BY R. AND R. CLARK, EDINBURGH. 



The substance of the following work has been already 
presented to the public in several Articles by the Author, 
which have appeared successively under the titles of 
Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates, in a recent edition of the 
Encyclopedia Britannica. 

As these Articles all related to one definite period in 
the History of Ancient Philosophy, and are intimately 
connected with one another; it was suggested to the 
Author, that they niight advantageously be combined 
as a whole in a separate Volume. 

For this purpose, accordingly, a revision of them has 
been undertaken, and considerable additions have been 
made under each head of the Inquiry ; so as to convey, 
it is hoped, a more accurate and full information con- 
cerning the state of Philosophy during the period in 
question. 

In contemplating this period as a whole, there can 
be no doubt that the philosophy of Aristotle occupies the 
foreground ; whether we regard it, as giving a systematic 
form, and definite expression, to what had been before, 
either indiscriminately taught, or only sketched in out- 
line and shadow, under the general name of Philosophy, 
by his immediate predecessors ; or refer to its established 
enpire in the world, and its effects subsisting even in 
ou< own times ; especially as these are manifested in 



VI 



the high authority still attributed to those masterly 
works, the Treatises of Logic, Ehetoric, and Ethics, the 
glory of his philosophic genius. 

The attention of the reader has therefore been natu- 
rally directed to Aristotle in the first instance. Next, 
on the same principle, would follow the inquiry into the 
Philosophy of Plato ; as, in like manner, the development 
of the teaching of Socrates, so far as it was a consequence 
of that teaching. Looking, thus, at the results of the 
lines of thought and tendencies existing in their ante- 
cedents, we shall be better enabled to trace out the 
respective contributions of each Philosopher to the com- 
mon result. By thus prosecuting the order of study, we 
shall be acting in the spirit of that direction of the 
greatest of modern philosophers ; where he bids us, if we 
would rightly estimate any particular science, not " stand 
on the level with it, but climb up, as it were, into the 
watch-tower of some higher science," and so, taking the 
prospect of it from above, explore the more remote, as 
well as the more interior, parts of it, then made apparei 
to the view.* 

* Bacon, Be Aug. Sclent. Works, 8vo, ed. 1857, vol. i. p. 460. 



i i 



GENERAL CONTENTS. 



ARISTOTLE. 



Page 
1 

14 



His Life ....... 

Account of his "Writings, and Reception of his Philosophy 

State of Philosophy before his time. General Character of 

his Philosophy . . . . .20 

Its Threefold Division into 1. Theoretic; 2. Efficient ; 3. Practical — 
Theoretic — consisting of Physics, Mathematics, Metaphysics 32 

Efficient — Dialectic or Logic, Rhetoric, Poetics . . 62 

Practical — Ethics, Politics . . . .122 

Design of his Philosophy — Style of his Writings — His 

Obscurity — Method of Discussion — Originality. . 161 



PLATO. 

His Life . . . . .167 

His Writings and Philosophy . . . .198 

The Sophists . . . . . .207 

Discussion in Dialogue adapted to Athenian mind . . 213 

Origin of the term Dialectic . . . .222 

Theory of Ideas ...... 223 

Knowledge regarded by Plato as Reminiscence . . 246 

His use of the Speculation of the Pinal cause . . .252 

Theory of the Universe and of the Divinity . . .254 

Ethical Views . . . . . .258 

Theory of Education — Dialogues of " the Republic " and "the 

Laws" . . . . . .265 



Vlll 



CONTENDS. 



His objection to the Poets — Theory of Imitation 
Authority ascribed to Traditions of Keligious Truth . 
Disregard of Secondary Agencies in pursuit of the one Master- 
principle of the Universe . 
Perfection of the Dialogues — Effect of the Mythic Narratives 



Page 

274 
285 



289 
291 



- SOCKATES. 








State of Athens in his time . . . .297 


His Education 






„ 305 


His Life and Teaching 






. 316 


His Accusation and Trial 








339 


Spirit of Heathen Keligion 








341 


The Comedy of the Clouds 








351 


State of Education 








358 


His Political Conduct 










364 


Prosecution and Trial 










369 


His Divination 


* 








374 


His Condemnation 










380 


His Imprisonment 


• 








383 


The Prison Scene 










384 


His Argument on the Soul 










390 


His Death 










396 


General effect of his Teaching 








403 


His Moral and Eeligious Teaching 








406 


His Dialectical Proceeding 








413 


His use of Analogy 








. 415 


His use of Irony . 








421 


His use of Definition 








422 


Elementary state of Logical and Ethical Science 




. 426 


Various Schools resulting from his Teaching 




429 


His Evidence in favour of ] 


Religion 








. 429 



ARISTOTLE. 



The power of philosophy in fixing an impression of itself on the 
world, appears, when attentively viewed, no less than that evi- 
denced in successful exertions of civil or military talents. But 
there is a striking difference in the comparative interest excited 
by the philosopher himself, and by the distinguished statesman 
or general. The personal fortunes of the philosopher are not 
connected with the effects of his philosophy. He has passed 
away from the eyes of men, when his powerful agency begins to 
be perceived .; whereas the statesman and the commander of 
armies are at once set before us in the very effects which they 
produce on the world ; and the history which tells of their 
policy or their conquests assumes almost the character of their 
biographies. 

This contrast is strongly displayed' in the instance of the 
particular philosopher whose life we would now retrace. At 
this day, after the lapse of more than twenty-one centuries from 
the time when he flourished, we are experiencing the power of 
Aristotle's philosophy, in its effects on language, and literature, 
and science, and even on theology ; and yet little satisfactory 
information can be obtained from Antiquity respecting the philo- 
sopher himself. No account of him appears to have been given 
until his celebrity had attracted envy as well as admiration ; so 
that we are compelled to receive with suspicion everything beyond 
the simple detail of a few facts. 

Stagirus} a Grecian city in the peninsula of Chalcidice, 

1 It is also written Stagiva. We have the authority of Herodotus and Thucy- 
dides for Stagirus. 



2 ARISTOTLE. 

colonized originally from the island of Andros, and afterwards 
from Chalcis in Euboea, was the birthplace of Aristotle. His 
father was Mcomachus, the physician and friend of Amyntas II., 
king of Macedonia ; his mother, Phsestis : both of Chalcidian 
descent. The origin of his family is referred to Machaon, son 
of iEsculapius. Such a tradition of descent, however, is but an 
ennobling of the fact that the art of healing was the hereditary 
profession of the family. 1 The date assigned to his birth is 
B.C. 384. 

Being left an orphan in early youth, Aristotle appears to have 
quitted his home, and gone to the house of Proxenus, a citizen 
of Atarneus, in Mysia, to whose guardianship he had been com- 
mitted ; and with him to have continued until his seventeenth 
year when he repaired to the great University of the world at 
that time — the school of Plato at Athens. Different accounts 
are given of the commencement of his application to philosophy. 
By one it is ascribed to a direction of the Pythian oracle. 2 Others 
state that philosophy was his last resource, when other schemes 
of life had failed ; that, having exhausted a large patrimony, he 
became a military adventurer, and after that a seller of drugs ; 
until at length, on accidentally entering the school of Plato, 
he there received a sudden impulse to the studies of his future 
life. These last statements, however, are not reconcilable with 
the period of youth at which his discipleship to Plato began. 
Nor are they consistent with the alleged fact, that his mind had 
been from the first trained to philosophy by his father Mco- 
machus. 3 

We can readily suppose that the extraordinary talent for 
science, and laborious devotion to it, which his mature age 
developed, would give some indications of themselves in his 
earlier years. Hence the expressions attributed to Plato, com- 
plimenting him as " the intellect of the school," and " the reader," 



1 Diog. Laert. in Aristot. ; Dionys. 8 His father Nicomachus has the 
Halicar. Be Demosth. et Aristot. ; Am- reputation of being the author of some 
mon. in Aristot. philosophical works. 

2 Ammon. in Aristot. 



HIS LIFE. 3 

and comparing his ardour and forwardness to the spirit of a 
restive colt. 1 

He remained at Athens, a hearer of Plato, twenty years ; 
leaving it only at the death of that philosopher, B.C. 348, and 
then returning to Atarneus. Disappointment at not succeeding 
to the chair of Plato in the Academy, has been assigned as the 
reason of his departure. All that appears, however, is, that he 
left Athens in compliance with an invitation from Hermias, 
who, having been his fellow-disciple in the school of Plato, had 
established himself at that time in independence against the 
King of Persia, as Tyrant, or Sovereign Prince, of Atarneus and 
its neighbourhood. It appears to have formed part of the state 
of Princes in those times, to receive the philosophers, and poets, 
and other literary men, at their courts, and thus to have formed 
circles of civilization around them. We hear of Solon at the 
court of Croesus ; Simonides and Pindar at that of Hiero ; Ana- 
creon with Polycrates, Tyrant of Samos ; Euripides with Archi- 
laus ; Plato with Dionysius. Literary men then, as indeed 
would be especially necessary, when books were few and scarcely 
to be obtained, sought information by travelling ; and such 
may have been in great measure the object of this visit of Aris- 
totle to Atarneus. 2 Here he spent the following three years of 
his life ; when the unhappy end of his friend Hermias, who fell 
a sacrifice to his ambition, and was executed as a rebel against 
Persia, compelled him to seek a refuge for himself by flight to 
Mitylene. Not did he in this extremity forget the ties of friend- 
ship which had connected him with the unfortunate Tyrant 
of Atarneus. To support the fallen family, he married Pythias, 
the adopted daughter, but variously described both as the sister 
and as the niece of Hermias. 

1 Diog. Lnert. in Aristot. ; Amnion. ol f/Av, &>? luces, xa.r tftyropinv, ol Ts, o-rou- 
in Aristot. ; iElian. Var. Hist, iv. 9. riuby.ivoi' ol *bi nns xa.) abrn; <rws x^" r ' ; 

2 Herodotus (III. 139) alludes to hnrai. Aristotle himself, in Ethic, viii., 
persons following the expedition of shews hy the remark, that " one may see 
Cambyses into Egypt for the purpose of also in travels, how domestic every man 
viewing the country : — Ka^/Si/Vsa rod is to man, and friendly,'' that this use 
Kvoou ffrpa.Tzvoy.Uou et' Aiyvcrrav, &k\u n of travelling was nothing strange to 

ffv%vo) it; rr,v A'/yvtrrov aTtxovro'EkX'/ivaJV, him. 



4 ARISTOTLE. 

From Mitylene lie proceeded into Macedonia to the court 
of Philip, and entered on a new scene of exertion, as the pre- 
ceptor of the future sovereign of the mightiest kingdom of the 
ancient world — Alexander the Great, at that time a youth of 
fourteen years of age. The call to such an office argues the high 
reputation already attained by Aristotle for philosophy ; though, 
doubtless, his introduction to the Macedonian court must have 
been through the interest and favour enjoyed there by his father 
Mcomaehus. At what time, indeed, his care of the youthful 
prince commenced, it is not possible exactly to determine. A 
letter is extant, addressed by Philip to Aristotle, which would 
imply that the charge of the prince's education had been com- 
mitted to the philosopher from the birth of Alexander. This is 
also far more probable than that the charge should have been 
postponed until the- prince had reached his fourteenth year, the 
period at which the actual residence of Aristotle at Pella is dated. 
Philip states in that letter that " a son is born to him ; that he 
is grateful to the gods, but not so much for the birth of the boy, 
as that he was born in the time of Aristotle ; trusting that, being 
nurtured and trained up by the philosopher, he would be a 
worthy successor to his father's glory and the conduct of affairs." 1 
It is certainly very possible that a plan of education proposed 
by Aristotle may have been carried on by others, until the more 
especial care of the intellectual powers demanded his personal 
instructions. The reception of the philosopher by the royal 
family was most friendly and honourable to him. The high 
estimation in which he was held was shewn in the influence he 
possessed at the Macedonian court. Philip, it is said, gave him 
liberal supplies of money, to enable him to pursue scientific 
inquiries. 2 He was most happy in the admiration and affection 
of his pupil. Alexander valued his instructions as those of a 

1 Aulus Gellius, Noct. Att. ix. 3. The 2 ^EHan. Var. Hist. iv. 19. The 

genuineness of the letter has hecn statement of Hernrippus (Diog. Laert. in 

douhted, but without sufficient reason, Aristot.), that Aristotle served in the 

if the only ground of objection is, that capacity of Ambassador from the Athe- 

it could not have been received by Aris- nians to Philip, seems inconsistent with 

totle at Mitylene. other established facts of his life. 



HIS LIFE. 5 

second parent ; observing, that " lie was no less indebted to 
Aristotle than to his father ; since it was through his father 
indeed that he lived, but through Aristotle that he lived 
well." 1 

It would be interesting to know what particular method was 
pursued by Aristotle in the education of Alexander ; but we 
have no exact information on this point. It appears certain, 
however, that he made the cultivation of a taste for literature 
the great principle of his instructions : and this would be in 
conformity with the plan of education proposed in his treatise of 
Politics. He is known, indeed, to have made a new collection of 
the Iliad, expressly for the use of Alexander, and to have com- 
posed for him a treatise On the Office of a King, not extant 
among his works. How deeply the youthful king had imbibed 
the Homeric spirit in the discipline of his early years, was evi- 
denced in his after-life, by the heroism with which his actions 
were conceived, and the poetry which mingled with the realities of 
his eventful history. The circumstances alone, that a copy of the 
Iliad was constantly at the pillow of Alexander during his expedi- 
tions, and was treasured by him with extraordinary care in the pre- 
cious casket of the spoils of Darius, are characteristic of the tone 
of mind which his preceptor's instructions had, if not formed, at 
least strengthened and improved. Nor is it inconsistent with 
this ultimate effect, that Aristotle should have communicated to 
his royal pupil even the abstruse doctrines of his philosophy 
For, that he did so, we have evidence in Alexander's complaint, 
in a letter to Aristotle, of the publication of the secret wisdom in 
which he had himself been disciplined ; and in the reply from 
Aristotle, " that the books alluded to were as if they had not been 
published, since without his oral instruction they would be un- 
intelligible." 2 Plutarch, indeed, attributes to Aristotle's instruc- 

1 Plutarch in Alex. Diog. Laertius from a passage of Aristotle, where, 
in Aristot. attributes to Aristotle himself writing to Alexander (Rliet. ad Alex. 1) 
a general expression to the same effect. (if the treatise here referred to be really 

2 Plutarch in Alex. c. 7, Aulus Gellius, his), he says, " you have charged me in 
Noct. Att. xx. 5. This literary jealousy your letter that no other person should 
on the part of Alexander appears also receive this book." 



6 ARISTOTLE. 

tions the fondness for medical study and practice remarkable hi 
Alexander. 1 

A life of such premature exertion as that of Alexander left 
comparatively little time for the mere business of philosophical 
instruction. Succeeding to the throne of his father at the age of 
20 years, he was from that time immersed in affairs of policy 
and war ; and even previously, he had been forwardly engaged 
in the services of the field, as also for a short interval in the 
conduct of the government. Still the society of Aristotle appears 
to have been cherished by him, so that the philosopher continued 
a resident at the court for two years after the accession of 
Alexander; leaving Macedonia only on the occasion of Alex- 
ander's setting out on his Asiatic campaigns, B.C. 33 i. 2 It is 
probable that Aristotle was indisposed to the hurry and restless- 
ness of military expeditions, and longed for a repose more con- 
genial to his taste in the philosophic bowers of the suburbs of 
Athens. Circumstances also had prepared the way for the sepa- 
ration. For though Alexander, it seems, never entirely lost his 
respect for his preceptor, the cordiality of their intercourse had 
in some measure abated. A commencement of alienation in the 
feelings of Alexander had been evidenced. 3 Aristotle, accordingly, 
embraced the opportunity then offered of returning to Athens ; 
and Callisthenes of Olynthus, his relative and pupil, supplied his 
place among the party of philosophers by whom the king was 
accompanied in the Asiatic expedition. 

It was fortunate for science that the intercourse between the 
king and the philosopher was not broken off by their separation. 
The conquests of Alexander presented singular opportunities for 
a collection of observations on Natural history. Under the 
superintendence, accordingly, of Aristotle, some thousands of 

1 Plutarch in Alex. author, appears from his making Aris- 

2 Ammonius, in his Life of Aristotle, totle a disciple of Socrates for three 
asserts that Aristotle accompanied Alex- years, whereas Socrates had been dead 
ander into Asia, and conferred with the sixteen years before the birth of Aris- 
Brahmans, where he composed " the totle. 

two hundred and fifty Polities." How 

much credit may be attached to this s Plutarch in Alex. 



HIS LIFE. 7 

persons, it is said, were employed in making inquiries on the 
subject throughout Asia and in Greece. And we have still 
valuable fruits of these inquiries, in & History of Animals, in ten 
books, extant among the works of Aristotle ; though this history 
must be but a small part of the fifty volumes to which Pliny 
says it extended. 1 

In the absence, however, of Aristotle, an event occurred which 
had the effect of exciting most unjust surmises against him, and 
involving him in unmerited disgrace with Alexander. A con- 
spiracy was formed against the life of the king by some noble 
youths who attended on his person. The conspirators were 
detected and punished. But the chief blame of the whole affair 
rested on Callisthenes ; to whom the education of the youths had 
been especially committed, and under whose sanction, accordingly, 
they were conceived to have acted in their traitorous designs. 
The imputation was the more credible, as Callisthenes had dis- 
tinguished himself by his opposition to the adulation of the 
courtiers, and the rude freedom with which, in spite of the 
admonitions of Aristotle, 2 he asserted his democratic principles. 
How far he was really guilty may admit a doubt. A pretext at 
least was afforded for the removal of an obnoxious individual. 
Callisthenes was imprisoned, and died a violent death. His 
connection with Aristotle gave a plea for extending the charge to 
Aristotle himself; who, it is represented, became so fearful of 
the result to himself, after the death of Callisthenes, as to have 
been actually instrumental to the murder of the king. He is 
stated to have sent a very subtle poison, called Stygian water, in 
a mule's hoof, the only material impregnable to it, to Antipater, 
and thus to have occasioned the death of the king. 3 The account, 



1 Plin. viii. 16. to converse, either very seldom, or else 

2 Aristotle is said expressly to have most courteously, with the king. Valer. 
cautioned Callisthenes in the words of Maxim, vii. 2. Diog. Laert. in Aristot. 
Thetis to Achilles {Iliad, xviii. 95) : 

'iiKvf/.o^osln poi, Tixos, 'ia-ffixi, o? ayopivas. 8 Arrian, Exp. Alex. vii. 27.; Plin. 

"Swift is the fate, my child, such words xxx. 16; Xiphilin. in Caracalla ; Qu. 

as thine bespeak." Curtius, viii. 6 ; Brucker, Hist. Grit. 

And generally to have admonished him Philos. in Aristot. 



8 ARISTOTLE. 

improbable in itself, is sufficiently refuted by the real state of the 
case, which shews that Alexander fell a sacrifice to his intense 
exertions in an unhealthy climate. It was probably invented 
and propagated by the rival sophists who surrounded the per- 
son of Alexander. To the same source may be ascribed the first 
estrangement of the king, and his increased aversion to the philo- 
sopher in consequence of the affair of Callisthenes. Alexander 
pointedly shewed his increased dislike, by sending a present of 
money to Xenocrates ; thus placing that philosopher, as well as 
Anaximenes, whom he also now more particularly noticed, in tri- 
umphant contrast with Aristotle, as the objects of his patronage. 1 
In the meantime Aristotle was pursuing his proper path of 
exertion at Athens as a lecturer in philosophy, in his own school 
of the Lyceum. There is no good reason for supposing that he 
was actuated in forming a separate school, as some have asserted, 
by contemptuous opposition to Xenocrates, or jealousy of the 
rhetorical fame of Isocrates. 2 His own fame already stood 
sufficiently high. Numbers resorted to him for instruction. In 
the morning and evening of each day he was thronged with 
hearers ; the morning class consisting of his more intimate and 
peculiar disciples, the evening class of hearers of a more general 
description. The distinction of these two classes corresponds 
with the difference between his "acroamatic" or "esoteric" and 
his "exoteric" philosophy. The application of these terms to 
the writings of Aristotle has been much controverted. The most 
simple account of them appears to be, that the acroamatic or 
esoteric were more of text-books, notices of various points of 
philosophy to be filled up by the previous knowledge of the 
learner and the explanations of the teacher, as lectures addressed 
to his own proper class ; the exoteric were more elaborate and 
popular disquisitions, more expanded in the reasonings, more 
diffuse in the matter. 3 His disciples obtained the appellation 

1 Diog. Laert. in Arist. ; Brucker, Tusc. Qu. i. 4 : Orator, iii. 35 ; Quinc- 
Hist. Crit. Philos. in Xenocrat. til, Inst. Orat. iii. 1. 

3 Aulus Gellius, Noct. Att. xx. 5 ; 

2 Diog. Laert. in Arlstot. ; Cicero, Plutarch in Alex. 



HIS LIFE. 9 

of Peripatetics; but trie reason of this is also controverted. 
Perhaps, like some other party-names, or names of sects, it was 
originally given in contempt. 1 

The reputation of Aristotle at length rose to a dangerous 
popularity. The intolerant spirit of paganism viewed with 
suspicion the spread of philosophical teaching, as tending to 
unsettle the existing government through their effect on the 
vulgar superstition. This had been strikingly shewn at Athens 
not long before the birth of Aristotle, in the fate of Socrates. 2 In 
the case of Aristotle there were enemies watching to apply the 
policy of the state to the cruel purposes which their envy had 
suggested. For twelve years, it seems, no opportunity of attack 
presented itself; since he continued his labours at Athens for 
that time. Probably the name of Alexander had been itself a 
shelter to him against their malice. But the alienation of the 
royal favour gave an opening to their designs ; and, on the death 
of Alexander, B.C. 823, he became the marked object of persecu- 
tion. Through the agency of the hierophant Eurymedon, with 
whom was associated a powerful citizen, by name Demophilus, a 
direct accusation of impiety was brought against him before the 
court of Areopagus. He was charged with introducing doctrines 
adverse to the religion of Greece. 3 It was alleged that he had 
paid divine honours both to Hermias and Pythias ; to the former 
by a hymn in praise of his virtue, to the latter by celebrating 
her memory (for she was then dead) with the Eleusinian rites, 4 
and to both by statues of them erected at Delphi. He saw that 
he had no chance of a favourable hearing against so formidable 
a conspiracy, and that his death was fully determined by his 

1 The practice of teaching in walking philosophers. Cleon, in Time. iii. 38, 

was not peculiar to Aristotle (iElian. compares the Athenian Assembly to 

Var. Hist. i. 19; Diog. Laert. iii. 11 ; "persons sitting spectators of sophists." 

Brucker, Hist. Crit. Philosoph. vol. i. p. 2 aqq 
788). Indeed the term cripl-raro? was 

applied to " discussion " before the time 3 See Origen. con. Cels. i. p. 52, ii. p. 

of Aristotle. Aristophanes uses it hu- " 

morouslyin Ban. 940, 951, in this sense. 4 The profanation of the mysteries 

The custom appears to have been for was not an unknown occurrence at 

the hearers to sit at the lectures of the Athens. See Thuc. vi. 28, 61. 



10 ARISTOTLE. 

enemies ; knowing too well the malignant sycophancy x which 
domineered at Athens. Instead, therefore, of confronting the 
charge, he made his escape to Chalcis, alleging to his friends, in 
allusion to the death of Socrates, "that he was unwilling to 
involve the Athenians in a second crime against philosophy." 2 

Some public honours at Delphi, probably a statue of himself 
with an inscription commemorating his former services to the 
Delphians, had been conferred on him by a public vote of the 
citizens. These honours were now recalled. The indignity made 
a deep impression on his feelings : yet he bore it with a becoming 
magnanimity. For in writing to his friend Antipater concerning 
it, he thus expresses himself — " Concerning what was decreed to 
me at Delphi, of which I am now deprived, I so feel, as neither 
to be excessively concerned, nor yet to be without concern about 
it." These were not the words, as iElian, who reports them, 
says, of vain ambition, but the just sentiments of one who, though 
he may not have cared for the honour itself, felt the insult of the 
deprivation. 3 He did not long survive his retreat to Chalcis — 
little more, probably, than a year. He was then advanced in 
life, and broken with bodily infirmities as well as with dejection 
of spirit. On the approach of death, he declared his wish, it is 
said, with regard to his successor at the Lyceum. Theophrastus 
of! Lesbos and Menedemus of Ehodes were the most conspicu- 
ous candidates for that honour. But the dying philosopher, 
avoiding a pointed rejection of either, delicately intimated 
his preference of Theophrastus, by calling for cups of Lesbian 
and Ehodian wine, and, when he had tasted them, simply 
observing, qdfuv 6 Asc&og, " The sweeter is the Lesbian." 4, The 
expression was the more appropriate, as sweetness was the 
characteristic of the style of Theophrastus. 

The mode of his death is variously related. One account is, 

1 Well described by him with allusion 2 Diog. Laert. in Aristot. ; Amnion, 

to the origin of the term "sycophant," in Aristot; Origen. con. Cels. i. p. 51, 

in a quotation from Homer, Od. vii., edit. Cantab. ; iElian. Var. Hist, iii.36 ; 

120, 121 :— Athenreus, xv. 1G. 

"Oyxw W oyx,v*i yv>%u<rx,u ... 3 iElian. Var. Hist. xiv. 1. 

. . . trvxov V It) <rvxw. 4 Auhis Gellius, Noct. Att. xiii. 5. 



HIS LIFE. 11 

that he died from vexation at not being able to explain the 
current of the Euripus. 1 Another story, less incredible than 
this, asserts that he drank aconite, in anticipation of the adverse 
judgment of the Areopagus. 2 The only probable account is ; that 
he died from a natural decay of the powers of the stomach ; his 
constitution being worn out by excessive watching and study. 
How exhaustless his application of mind was, may be judged 
from the anecdote related of him, that in resting himself on his 
couch, he would hold a brass ball in his hand in such a way, 
that the noise of its falling into a basin underneath might disturb 
his slumbers. 3 Another anecdote, shewing the like restless 
spirit of inquiry, is, that on some occasion of sickness, he ob- 
served to his physician ; " Treat me not as you would a driver 
of oxen or a digger, but tell me the cause, and you will find me 
obedient." 4 

His fellow-citizens shewed great respect to his memory. 
They conveyed his body to Stagirus, and erected a shrine and 
altar over his tomb. In gratitude also for the restoration of 
their city, effected through his interest with the Macedonian 
court, and the new code of laws which he had been permitted to 
frame for them, they instituted a festival called Aristotelea, and 
gave the name of Stagirite to the month in which the festival 
was held. Plutarch says that even in his time they shewed the 
stone seats and shaded walks of the philosopher. 5 The grant of 
a gymnasium had been among the advantages which he had 
obtained for his native city. 

Aristotle was twice married. After the death of Pythias, 
by whom he had a daughter of the same name, he married 
Herpyllis, a fellow-citizen. By Herpyllis he had a son, Mcoma- 
chus, who became a disciple of Theophrastus, but died in battle 
at an early age. 6 He adopted also as a son, Mcanor, the son of 

1 Justin Martyr, Coll. ad. Grcec. ; 3 Diog. Laert. in Aristot. 
Greg. Nazianz. Orat. iii. p. 79 ; Bayle 4 iElian. Var. Hist. ix. 23. 
Diet. art. Aristot. note z. 5 Plutarch in Alex. 

2 Hesych. in Aristot. ; Suidas, Fab- 6 Aristocles apud Euseb. Prisp. Ev. 
ric. Bill. Gr. vol. ii. p. 109; Diog. xv. 2. 

Laert. in Aristot. 



12 ARISTOTLE. 

Proxenus, the friend of his youth, and by the directions of his 
will gave his daughter Pythias to him in marriage. Pythias, 
by her third husband Metrodorus, had a son named after the 
philosopher. 

In his extant will we have a pleasing evidence of his amiable 
concern for his surviving family. It contains affectionate pro- 
visions, not only for his wife and children, but for his slaves 
also ; expressly enjoining that no one of those who had served 
him should be sold, but that each -should be freed on attaining 
manhood, according to his deserts. 1 

The fondness of the Greeks for apophthegm has handed down 
some reputed sayings of the philosopher, such as the following : 
— Being asked "in what the educated differ from the unedu- 
cated," he said, " as much as the living from the dead." Again, 
to the question, "What grows old soon?" he answered " Grati- 
tude;" "What is hope?" "The dream of one awakened." To 
one boasting that he was from a great city, " Not this," he said, 
" should one look to, but who was worthy of a great country." 
" Some men," he observed, " lived so parsimoniously as if they 
were to live for ever, whilst others spent, as if they were to die 
immediately." Being blamed for giving alms to a person of 
np worth : " It was not to the man," he said, " I gave, but to 
mankind." 2 

In body, Aristotle, if we may believe the accounts of his 
person, was deficient in the requisite symmetry. He is described 
as having slender legs and little eyes. To these defects were 
added a feeble voice and hesitating utterance. 3 Unlike philoso- 
phers in general of that age, he attended to the ornament of Ms 
person. His hair was shorn ; he wore several rings ; and was 
elegant throughout in his dress. 4 His health was infirm ; but he 



1 Diog. Laert in Aristot. calling Socrates " a shortlived tyranny." 

2 Diog. Laert. in Aristot. The same The point of these passages, at any rate, 

author mentions an instance of Aristotle's escapes the modern reader. 

foiling the cynic Diogenes in some pre- „ _.. x . , 

,,f , , .... . ° , . r a Diog. Laert. rpavXos mv Quvnv. 

meditated witticism, and gives some 4 

expressions by which Aristotle charac- 4 Diog. Laert.; iElian. Var. Hist. 

terized certain philosophers, such as iii. 19. 



HIS LIFE. 13 

sustained it by habits of temperance, and by that medical skill 
which he possessed in an eminent degree, so as to protract his life 
to the 63d year, B.C. 322. 

Of his moral qualities, the zeal of philosophical rivalry has 
transmitted the most discordant accounts. 1 Some have been as 
extravagant in their praises as others have been in their censures. 
By some, his patriotism, his affection for his friends, and reverence 
for his preceptor Plato 2 — his moderation, and modesty, and love 
of truth — have been held up to admiration. By others, again, no 
crime has been thought too bad to be imputed to him. He has 
been stigmatised as a parasite, as gluttonous, effeminate, sordid, 3 
ungrateful, impious. Among his faults, too, have been mentioned 
a sneering cast of countenance, and an impertinent loquacity. 
In particular, he has been accused of assailing Plato with captious 
questions, and thus forcing the old man, when in his eightieth year, 
to retire to the privacy of his garden. 4 Whilst, however, the 
circumstances in which he lived, exalted as he was by the favour 
of kings, and by eminence in philosophy, afford a strong pre- 
sumption that the dark side of the picture has at least been 
overcharged, 5 we have a more decisive evidence to the truth of 
the favourable representations of his character in the temper and 
spirit of his extant writings. Throughout these, there is a 
candour, and manliness, and love of truth, strikingly discernible ; 
not professedly set forth, but interwoven with the texture of his 
discussions, and rather betrayed unconsciously than obtruding 
itself on our notice, and demanding to be recognized. His 
ethical writings, especially, breathe a pure morality, such as we 
find in no antecedent philosopher; a morality also avowedly 
practical, and by which he would have stood self-condemned 
had his own conduct been at variance with it. 

1 Cicero remarks the malignity of the " a man whom for the had even to praise 
Greeks in their censures of each other would he profane." 

— Sit ista in Grsecorum levitate per- 3 Hence the story of his selling the oil 

versitas, qui maledictis insectantur eos which he had used medicinally ahout 

a quibus de veritate dissentiunt. De his person. (Diog. Laert. in Aristot.) 
Fin. ii. 25. 4 ^Elian. Var. Hist. iii. 19. 

2 Ammonius says he dedicated an 5 See Aristocles apud Euseh. Prcep. 
altar to Plato, inscribing it to him as Ev. xv. 2. 



14 ARISTOTLE. 



AEISTOTLE'S PHILOSOPHY. 

Account of the Writings of Aristotle and reception of his 

Philosophy. 

The preservation of the original copies of the writings of 
Aristotle is a curious fact in literary history. Whilst the 
philosopher distributed his other property to his surviving 
family, he left the more precious bequest of his writings to 
Theophrastus, his favourite disciple and successor in the Lyceum. 
By Theophrastus they were bequeathed to Neleus, Ins scholar, 
by whom they were conveyed from Greece into Asia Minor, to 
the city of Scepsis, where he resided. The heirs of Neleus, to 
whom they next descended, were private individuals, not philo- 
sophers by profession, who were only anxious for the safe 
custody of their literary treasure. The magnificence of kings 
had then begun to display itself in the collection of libraries ; 
and the works of genius were sought out with an eager and 
lavish curiosity. It was a taste happy for the cause of literature ; 
to which, perhaps, the example of Alexander's noble fondness 
for everything connected with intellectual energy had principally 
led. Aristotle himself, indeed, is said to have been the first to 
form a library. 1 He was the first, probably, to form one on an 
extensive scale. The Scepsians, into whose hands his works 
had now fallen, fearful of the literary rapacity of the kings of 
Pergamos, resorted to the selfish expedient of secreting the 
writings under ground. The volumes remained in this conceal- 
ment until at length their very existence seems to have been 
forgotten ; and they would thus have been lost to the world, but 
for the accidental discovery of them after the lapse of 1 30 years. 
His philosophy had been traditionally propagated ; for we hear of 
Peripatetics at this time. Portions, indeed, of his works must, 
doubtless, have continued in circulation among the disciples of 
the Lyceum, serving in some measure as a record of the principles 

1 Strabo, xiii. 



HIS PHILOSOPHY. 15 

of the sect. Much may have been preserved from memory : for 
we have little notion now of the impression made by viva voce 
instruction, when it was the only channel of knowledge to the 
generality. A Peripatetic philosopher, accordingly, Apellicon of 
Teos, whom Strabo, however, characterizes as a lover of books 
rather than a lover of science — tpi\6Qi£\o; paWov n oi\6ao<po^- — 
purchased the recovered volumes, and effectually retrieved them 
for the world. He employed several copyists in transcribing 
them, himself superintending the task. Unfortunately, much 
was irreparably lost, the writings being mouldered with the 
dampness of the place in which they had so long been deposited. 
In addition to these damages of time, they were now further 
impaired by misdirected endeavours to restore the effaced text 
of the author. 

This account, which rests ultimately on the authority of 
Strabo, has been much canvassed by modern critics. But while 
the testimony of Strabo may be received as to the facts which 
he relates, and which Plutarch derives from him, the inferential 
part of his account is not borne out by the real state of the case, 
with regard to the extent of the knowledge of Aristotle's works. 
"What Strabo says may be true of certain copies, perhaps 
autographs of Aristotle's works ; but cannot be true generally 
of copies of them. For Athenaeus mentions Ptolemy Philadelphus 
having purchased from ISTeleus, Aristotle's works, with those of 
other philosophers. And it further appears from the writings of 
the later Greek commentators on Aristotle, that those of an 
earlier age, whose writings are not extant, but are cited, or 
referred to, by the later, had several, if not the chief part, of the 
treatises of Aristotle before them. 

The works of Aristotle, or rather the copies of them thus 
obtained, were conveyed by Apellicon to Athens, their proper 
home, though no longer perfect in the text, or such exactly as 
the author had left them. Here this collection of them remained 
until the spoliation of the city by Sylla. The library of Apellicon 

1 Strabo, xiii. p. 609. Aristocles in Euseb. Prcep. Ev. xv. 2, speaks of 
Apellicon as the author of some writings on Aristotle. 



1 6 ARISTOTLE. 

was a tempting object of plunder to the Romans, who were now 
awakened to the value of literature ; and Aristotle's works 
accordingly were carried away to Rome amidst the other rich 
spoils. At Rome they experienced a better fortune. Tyrannic, 
a learned Greek, who had been a prisoner of war to Lucullus, 
and was then enjoying the freedom granted to him as a resident 
at Rome, was the principal instrument in their future publication. 
Obtaining access to the library of Sylla, he made additional 
copies of the writings. His labours were followed by Andronicus 
the Rhodian, who at length edited the collected works of Aristotle, 
at a distance of nearly 300 years from the time when they were 
composed. 1 

Meanwhile other sects in philosophy had sprung up, and 
engaged the attention of the world. The Stoics, and the Epicu- 
reans, among others, had formed their respective parties. Platon- 
ism had obtained permanent establishment at Alexandria. The 
disciples of Aristotle, on the contrary, had to struggle against 
the disadvantage of the loss, except, it seems, in some detached 
portions, of the authoritative records of their master's philosophy. 
When, however, these records were fully published, they were 
studied with extraordinary eagerness. A multitude of com- 
mentators arose, who exercised their acuteness and ingenuity in 
explaining the sense of the philosopher. As Aristotle himself 
by his personal teaching had transcended the fame of his con- 
temporaries, so his philosophy rose up from its long sleep to 
triumph over every other that had previously engaged the public 



1 Plutarch in Sylla; Bayle's Diet. art. his time. He does not wonder, he says, 

Tyrannio, note D ; Brucker, Hist. Crit. " at the ignorance of Aristotle's Topics 

Pidlos. vol. i. p. 799. Andronicus flour- in an eminent rhetorician of that age ; 

ished about b.c. 60. The rise of philo- as Aristotle was unknown to the philoso- 

sophy at Rome was contemporary with pliers themselves, except to very few ; " 

him. Cicero in Tusc. Qu.'\. 1, says, quiabipsisphilosophis, prseter admodum 

" Philosophia jacuit usque ad hanc seta- paucos, ignorarctur. Athenseus, i. p. 3, 

tem." He mentions, too, in Fin. iii. 3, says the books of Aristotle were pur- 

offinding"commentariosquosdam Aris- chased of Neleus by Ptolemy Philadel- 

totelios," in the villa of Lucullus. In the phus, for the library of Alexandria. 

Topica ad Trebatium, c. 1, Cicero further This may also be true of detached por- 

speaks of the prevailing ignorance of Aris- tions of Aristotle's works, or copies of 

totle's works among the philosophers of such portions: 



HIS PHILOSOPHY. 17 

mind. Platonism, indeed, modified as it was by Ammonius and 
his successors, continued to be fostered in the early ages of the 
Christian church, in consequence of the theological cast which 
it had assumed, and its facility of accommodation to Christian 
truth. But in the progress of the Church, when Christianity 
needed to be maintained, not so much by accession from the 
ranks of paganism, as by controversial ability within its own 
pale, a more exact method was required. Here, then, the 
philosophy of Aristotle asserted its value and its pre-eminence. 

But it was only a partial Aristotelic philosophy that was at 
first established. His logical treatises had been studied during 
the ascendancy of Platonism, for their use in arming the dis- 
putant with subtle distinctions, and enabling him accurately to 
state his peculiar notions in Theology. The same occasion still 
existed for the acuteness of the expert logician, even after the 
decline of Platonism, in the state of theological controversies. 
It was still, therefore, chiefly as a logical philosopher, through 
the several treatises which pass under the name of the Organon, 
that Aristotle was known throughout Christendom. In the west 
of Europe, indeed, the cloud of ignorance which had covered the 
lands with thick darkness, limited the attainments even of the 
learned to a narrow field. The original language of Aristotle's 
Philosophy was gradually almost forgotten ; and the generality 
were restricted to such of his writings as were translated by the 
few learned men, the luminaries of the long night of the middle 
ages. The peculiar exigencies of the times, and the taste of the 
learned themselves, led to the translation in particular of the 
logical treatises. That on the " Categories" appears to have been 
the one principally known among Christians. Nor were these 
translations always made from the original Greek ; but, on the 
contrary, were in most instances versions of versions. For its 
knowledge of Greek literature, the west of Europe was indebted 
to Arabian civilization. The Arabians had, together with their 
conquests in Spain, imported their knowledge of the Greek 
philosophy, the seeds of which had been scattered in the East 
by the learning of the Nestorian Christians. Translations had 

C 



18 ARISTOTLE. 

been made into Arabic, of the Greek authors, and among these, of 
Treatises of Aristotle. Jews at the same period were resident in 
great numbers in Andalusia, the principal seat of Arabic litera- 
ture. These, by their commercial intercourse with Christians 
and Mahometans, served as a channel through which the Greek 
philosophy was carried on from the Spanish Arabians to the 
Christians of the West. For the purpose of communication, the 
Arabic versions of Aristotle were translated into Latin, the * 
universal language of early European literature. And thus was 
the foundation laid of that Scholastic Philosophy, through which 
the dominion of Aristotle was afterwards extended over Europe. 

But the occupation of Constantinople by the Latins, in 
the beginning of the thirteenth century, was the opening of 
a new era in the literary history of Europe. Greater facilities 
were afforded by this event for the knowledge of the Greek 
language. Aristotle began then to be no longer known chiefly 
as a logician. His physical, metaphysical, and moral treatises 
were more extensively explored and studied ; though at first 
objection was made to the Physics by the Papal authority. He 
was thenceforth recognized under the title of Princeps Philoso- 
phorum. His logic, indeed, maintained its ascendancy in the 
Schools of Europe ; but it was not applied exclusively, as at first, 
to Theology. It was carried into those new subjects of inquiry 
which the extended knowledge of his writings had introduced 
to the learned. The spirit of disputatious subtilty, which, in the 
beginnings of the Scholastic philosophy, had displayed itself in 
the quarrels between the Nominalists and Eealists, afterwards 
found employment in the application of logical principles to 
speculations in Physics and Metaphysics. At the same time 
Theology became more and more corrupted by the refinements 
of systematic exposition ; until at length the accumulated mass 
of error became too evident to be borne, and, among other 
causes, produced a re-action in the Eeformation of the Church. 1 

The abuse of his philosophy, thus manifested, tended greatly 

1 Roger Bacon, Opus Majus, part i. Life of Wichliffe ; Lewis's Life of 
p. 13, 19, ed. Jebb, Lond. ; Lewis's Bishop Pecock ; Mosheim's Eccles. 



HIS PHILOSOPHY. 19 

to shake the empire which it had held over the minds of men. 
Had Luther, accordingly, stood alone in the work of reform, Aris- 
totle would perhaps have been altogether banished from the schools 
of the Eeformed. But his roughness of hand was tempered, in 
this point as in others, by the milder spirit of Melanchthon. 

Melanchthon, whilst he had too deep an acquaintance with 
classical literature not to feel the charm of the writings of Plato, 
justly vindicated the superiority of Aristotle's philosophy as a 
discipline of the mind. He therefore assisted in supporting the 
established dominion of Aristotle in the Schools ; whilst he 
rejected the errors to which it had administered. 1 Afterwards 
the disputes among Protestants themselves served to perpetuate 
that dominion : and, from the same cause as before, the subtilties 
of the Logical and Metaphysical Treatises were studied rather 
than the more practical parts of the philosophy. Thus, even 
after the labours of Bacon in dispelling the mists which the too 
elaborate study of Aristotle's system and method by the doctors 
of the Middle ages had diffused, his works continued to be read 
and taught in Protestant Universities. His Philosophy, during 
an empire of centuries, had occupied so many posts in the field 
of science and literature, that no other, however great the 
improvement, could at once displace it. For thus we find even 
Bacon himself, in the process of counteracting it, and introduc- 
ing his " Interpretation of Xature," compelled to use a phraseology 
founded on the dogmas of the Schools. 

It is then of great importance to examine the system of 
Aristotle in its own authentic sources. Such an examination 
will convince us, that the philosopher is not to be censured for 
that depravation of philosophy to which he was made sub- 
servient ; but rather that, had his teaching been rightly applied, 
and pursued in the spirit of its author, the Schoolmen could 
hardly have been led into those airy and unreal speculations 

Hist. vol. ii. p. 216, 218, Lond. 1823; 1 Melanchthon in Aristot. et Platan. 

Pegge's Life of Bishop Grosseteste ; ii. p. 370, iii. p. 351 ; Bayle's Diet. art. 

Eecherches Critiques sur V Age et V Ori- Melanchthon, note K. ; Brucker, Hist. 

gine cles Traduct. Lat. cV Aristotle, par Crit. Phil. iv. p. 282. 
M. Jourdain, p. 16, 81, 94, Paris, 1819. 



20 ARISTOTLE. 

which constituted their science of Nature. We are compelled, 
indeed, to take our estimate of it from such imperfect and often 
confused relics, as time has spared to us out of a far greater mass 
of his original writings. 1 Fortunately, however, those relics 
include a great variety of treatises, affording a specimen at least 
of his mode of philosophizing in every department of science. 

State of Philosophy before Aeistotle. General Character 
of his Philosophy. 

Aristotle was the first who really separated the different 
sciences, and constituted them into detached systems, each on its 
proper principles. Before his time philosophy had existed as a 
vast undigested scheme of speculative inquiry, fluctuating in its 
form and character according to the genius and the circumstances 
of its leading teachers. 

Thus the two great fountains of Grecian science, — the Italic 
school, founded by Pythagoras — the Ionic, by Thales — were both 
in principle mathematical ; though, when we look to their actual 
results, as they were moulded by their respective masters, the 
Italic is characterized as the Ethical school, the Ionic as the 
Physical. Both appear to ' have been drawn from the same 
parent-source of Egyptian civilization and knowledge. The 
mystic combination of mathematical, physical, and moral truth 
exhibited in the ancient theological philosophy of Egypt, found 
a kindred spirit in Pythagoras. Hence that solemn religious 
light shed over his speculations. Mathematical science was the 
basis of his system. He conceived Numbers to be the primary 
elements of all things ; regarding all other objects of thought as 
" imitations," or " representations," of Numbers. 2 But the system, 
as a whole, was a mystic contemplation of the universe, addressed 
to the moral and devotional feelings of man. Thales was a 



1 Diog. Lacrt. in Aristot. trvvsygx-^B instinct with Pythagorean doctrine, 
£e -rcc/u.TXu<rrcc (hifix'iu. makes Prometheus say, Ka.) //.r.v u^rtpov 

2 Metaph. i. 6, ii. p. 848, Du Val. t^,oz ov trotpiffftdruv 'Egsi^ov alrol;. — Prom. 
Metaph. xii. 3, p. 974. So JEschylus, Vinct. 45. Ed. Blomfield, 



PHILOSOPHY BEFORE ARISTOTLE. 21 

philosopher of a much more simple cast. Like Pythagoras, he 
was devoted to mathematical study. He is said to have instructed 
the Egyptians how to measure the height of their pyramids by 
means of the shadows ; and several of the theorems of the 
Elements of Euclid are attributed to him. But he did not, like 
Pythagoras, fall into the error of confounding and blending the 
objects and facts of the external world with the truths of abstract 
science. According to him, it was sufficient to shew that water 
was the element of all things. He sought no deeper cause in 
any speculation concerning the mode in which this element sub- 
sisted. The successors of Pythagoras and Thales variously 
modified the theories of those great masters, y The physical 
philosophy, however, of Thales, as the more simple and intel- 
ligible, and probably also from the greater intercourse of Greece 
with its Asiatic Colonies than with its Italian, especially pre- 
vailed in Greece. Thus we find Socrates, who had been the 
disciple of Arclielaus of that School, complaining that the 
concerns of human life had been abandoned for the subtilties of 
Physics. In the hands of Socrates, Philosophy resumed its 
moral complexion. Had it devolved on Xenophon to take the 
lead as the successor and interpreter of Socrates, things would 
probably have continued in this course, and Ethical science 
might henceforth have triumphed in the Grecian Schools. But 
the genius of Plato succeeded to the rich patrimony of the 
Socratic philosophy. And Plato was not one, whose ambition 
could be content with less than the reputation of founding a 
school, or whose imagination could be tied down to the realities 
of human life. 1 The mystical theory of Numbers taught by 
Pythagoras possessed a powerful charm for such a mind as that 
of Plato. At the same time his power of eloquent discussion 
found its own field of exertion, in speculating on those moral 
truths with which the lessons of Socrates had inspired him. 



1 Aristotle {Ehet. ii. 23) mentions oy trails -hpav, oltiv roiourov, " our 

that Aristippus, alluding to Plato's friend, at any rate (meaning Socrates), 

ambitious manner of expression on some said nothing of the kind." 
point of philosophy, remarked, «XX« ^v 



22 ARISTOTLE. 

He had also been a hearer of Cratylus, 1 and through him had 
been instructed in the theory of the " perpetual flux " of nature, 
the great doctrine of Heraclitus. Plato accordingly applied 
himself to the combination of these various systems. The 
theory of Pythagoras was to be retained consistently with the 
perpetual change of all existing things according to Heraclitus, 
and with the immutability of Nature implied in the Socratic 
definitions. Definitions could not apply to any perceptible 
objects, if it were allowed that all such objects were constantly 
changing. Nor could Numbers sufficiently account for that 
immense variety of objects which the universe presented. There 
must therefore, it was concluded, be some existences, indepen- 
dent of the perceptible universe, the fixed objects of definitions; 
and there must be also an infinity of various archetypes, corre- 
sponding to the various classes of external objects. Hence he 
devised his doctrine of uH, or Ideas ; a doctrine naturally sug- 
gested to an imaginative mind, by the fixedness and universality 
of the notions signified by language, as contrasted with the 
perpetual variations of the external world. To these abstract 
natures, or Ideas, he assigned a real being, as objects of intel- 
lectual apprehension ; accounting for the existence of sensible 
things from their "participation" of them. Thus he raised a 
structure of philosophy on a basis of metaphysics and logic con- 
jointly ; or, in other words, Philosophy, in its passage through the 
school of Plato, had become a transcendental Logic or Dialectic. 
Dialectic, the science, according to Plato, which contemplates the 
Ideas themselves, was held forth to the student as the dominant 
Philosophy, the consummation and crown of all sciences. 2 

Such was the state of Philosophy when Aristotle began to 
teach, and in which he had himself been trained. But it was 
not a system in which his penetrating mincl could rest satisfied. 



1 Cratylus found fault with his inas- 2 r A^' olv loxu a-oi, %<pnv ly&>, &Ws£ 

ter Heraclitus for saying that " a man Q^iyxl; tc7; ya^fixa-iv h AiuXsxnxh -h^7v 

had never been twice on the same river; i-raw x.u<r6ou, xcu olxir eixko rovrov 

for no one," he said, "had ever been ydhy-ct avuri^u h^Zi av ivirihrfai, aXA' 

even once." {Metaph. iv. 5.) This was 'ix uv *$* «*■»« r« tuv yu^r^uuruv ; "Epoiy, 

but a natural extension of the doctrine i<pv. (Plato, Republ. vii. p. 168, ed. 

of Heraclitus. Bekker, 1785). 



GENERAL CHARACTER OF HIS PHILOSOPHY. 23 

He thought too accurately, not to discover that this cardinal 
doctrine 1 of Platonism, the doctrine of Ideas, specious as it was, 
was only a shadowy representation of the objects of philosophy; 2 
and that, in order to rest the sciences on a sure basis, a more 
exact analysis of the principles of human knowledge was 
required. He accordingly addressed himself to the task of 
developing a really intellectual system of nature, in the stead of 
that imaginary world of thought and knowledge which the lofty 
enthusiasm of Plato had created. 

jTle found the several sciences separated from their roots, and 
vegetating only as stunted branches on a stock unnatural to 
them. Even Dialectic itself, the master science, was neglected. 
Its propei* nature was mystified and overlooked in that medley 
of logical and metaphysical truth which had usurped its name ; 
and its relation to the other sciences was misapprehended. In 
overthrowing the doctrine of Ideas, therefore, he had to make 
an entire reform of Philosophy. And, in fact, he did appear no 
less as a reformer of the Ancient Philosophy, than Bacon was 
of the Scholasticism of his day. In each case, idols were en- 
throned in the niches and shrines of the temple of science ; and 
the hand of a bold reformer was required to cast them down and 
break them in pieces. ( If indeed we impartially consider the 
case, we shall find that Aristotle was animated by the like spirit 
to that which dictated the method of the Inductive philosophy, 
and that his reform was directed to the like points. It was his 
object, as well as Bacon's, to recal men, from their unprofitable 
" flight to universals," to a study of the actual course of nature ; 
and further to direct them into the right path of discovery. 

He was the first, accordingly, except in the case of mathe- 
matics, to exhibit a particular science drawn out into its proper 
system. There was, for instance, a great deal of logical and of 
moral truth scattered through the writings of Plato ; but there 
was no regular statement of the principles either of logical or 



n, ■/.■ / 



1 To o*l xsQctXtxtov xcu ro xvgo; 7r,$ 2 Toe, yc\(> il^n %a.igiraj' TigiTio-ftoirx 

TlXarma; uiglffiws, h <z"i(>) ruv vo'/iruv 'itrri. Aristot. Anal. Post. i. c. 22, \ 

hoirufys- (Atticus Platonic, apud Euseb. 513, ed. Buble. 
Prcep. Evan. xv. c. 13.) 



24 ARISTOTLE. 

moral science, no distinct collection of the proper facts of those 
sciences, until the Treatises of the Organon and the Bhetoric and 
Ethics of Aristotle appeared. We may easily conceive the ardu- 
ousness and importance of this service in the cause of philosophy. 
Tor any one person to have fully carried into effect such a design, 
might well be thought impossible. And we shall not wonder, 
therefore, that in some instances he should have failed, or have 
merely indicated the proper method to be pursued. 

It was not indeed to be expected, that one trained in the 
dialectical philosophy of Plato should have emerged at once from 
the prejudices of that system. Aristotle, though professedly 
opposed to the realism involved in Plato's doctrine of Ideas, yet 
betrays the power of language over his own speculations, by the 
importance which he attributes to abstract notions as the founda- 
tions of scientific truth. It is a delusion, which the simple 
attention to the phraseology of one language (and there is no 
evidence that Aristotle knew any language but his own) is apt 
to produce. In the analysis of words, we are apt to lose sight of 
the merely arbitrary connection between them and the objects 
designated by them, and to suppose that we have penetrated into 
the nature of the thing, when we have only explored the notions 
signified by the term. Thus Aristotle, whilst he rejected the 
Platonic theory of Ideas, still conceived that there were certain 
immovable principles, in the knowledge of which true science 
consisted. He differed at the same time from Plato in his esti- 
mate of their nature. Plato regarded the Ideas as archetypes 
and causes of all sensible and actual existences ; whereas 
Aristotle contemplates them simply as causes or first principles 
from which all knowledge is derived. He did not allow that 
these abstractions had in themselves any objective reality or any 
active power ; but he conceived that the speculation about them 
was an insight into the secrets of Nature. 

"* Philosophy, accordingly, under his hands, stripped of its 
metaphysical mysticism, assumed a strictly logical aspect. 
The foundations of science were laid in definitions of those 
essential natures which constituted the first principles of his 



GENERAL CHARACTER OF HIS PHILOSOPHY. 25 

system ; and from these definitions the truths of the particular 
sciences were to be deduced. P 

From this view of the nature of Science, it followed that he 
should employ Induction, rather to determine notions, than to 
arrive at general -principles, such as in modern philosophy are 
denominated Laws of Nature. In order to discover a first prin- 
ciple, on which a system of science might be raised, it was 
necessary to state exactly that conception of the mind which 
belonged exclusively to any particular class of objects. The 
stating such a conception was, in the phraseology of Aristotle, 
the assigning of the \6yo$ of the Oboia, or the giving a definition 
of the object as to its essence. A definition of this kind required 
an accurate analysis of thought. Every notion common to other 
objects was to be rejected ; and after such rejection, that which 
remained exclusively appropriate to the object under considera- 
tion, was to be assumed as the principle by which its real nature 
was expressed. The process was not dissimilar to that by which 
the truths of modern science are elicited ; except that the Induc- 
tion of Aristotle terminates in universal notions ; whereas the 
Induction of Bacon terminates in general facts ; — such facts being 
the utmost that can be obtained from outward observation of 
objects. It is precisely indeed in this point that the great dif- 
ference consists between the science of Aristotle and that of Bacon. 
Aristotle, for example, inquires into the nature of light, and 
endeavours to define it exactly as it differs from all other natures. 
This definition is an expression of that principle on which the 
whole nature of light is conceived to depend. A modern philo- 
sopher pursuing the method of Bacon, examines facts concerning 
it, and, distinguishing those which really belong to it from those 
which do not, concludes from the remainder some general affir- 
mative respecting it. A modern philosopher often draws a con- 
clusion as to the nature of a thing ; as when he infers that light 
is material, or that the soul is immaterial. But then he does not 
hold such inferences as principles in the sense of Aristotle ; nor 
does he employ them to interpret the facts of a science. He 
acquiesces in such conclusions as ultimate principles. He finds, 



26 ARISTOTLE. 

for example, the facts belonging to the falling of bodies on the 
earth's surface, and to the revolutions of the heavens, coincident 
in the same general law. He pronounces, therefore, that the 
principle signified by the term gravity, whatever its nature may 
be, is the same in both classes of facts. His conclusions at the 
same time in Natural Philosophy are independent of this assump- 
tion ; as these would not be affected, though the principle of 
gravitation were proved to be different in the two cases. If you 
overthrow, on the other hand, a speculative doctrine of the ancient 
Physics, all the conclusions of the system fall to the ground. 

We shall wonder the less at the peculiar complexion of 
Aristotle's philosophy, when we observe that even modern philo- 
sophers have been by no means exempt from the Eealism which 
language tends to suggest, and which might almost be termed 
the original sin of the human understanding. 

Such then, according to Aristotle, was the character of philo- 
sophy, so far as it was purely theoretic. It furnished the mind with 
the means of contemplating nature surely and steadily, amidst the 
variety of phenomena which external objects present, by fixing 
it on abstract universal principles, eternal and unchangeable. 

But this was not the only view which he took of Philosophy. 
He did not limit its use to Contemplation ; though Contemplation 
was its proper function. He regarded it further under two other 
distinct points of view — as it studied the principles either of 
Effects produced, or those of Human Actions. Thus, he distributes 
Philosophy in general into three branches : — I. Theoretic ; II. 
Efficient ; III. Practical. By Theoretic, he denotes, 1. Physics, 
2. Mathematics, 3. Theology, or the Prime Philosophy, or the 
science known by the modern name of Metaphysics ; by Efficient, 
what we understand by the term Art, as Dialectic or Logic, 
Ehetoric, Poetics ; by Practical, Moral philosophy, as Ethics and 
Politics. Whilst, then, in order to a purely Theoretic philosophy, 
he endeavoured to present to the mind the primary elements of 
Thought, following the order and connections of human reason 
rather than looking to the phenomena of nature, he had a different 
aim in the two other branches of inquiry, and pursued a different 



GENERAL CHARACTER OF HIS PHILOSOPHY. 27 

method. In these, his aim was to enable the student to realize 
some effect, or to attain some good ; in Efficient Philosophy, to 
lajr before the mind those principles which impart skill in the arts ; 
in Practical, those by which the goods of life are attained, whether 
by individuals or by societies. Thus, in both these branches his 
object, though comparatively limited, was in fact the same as 
that of Bacon — to increase human power by increasing human 
knowledge. He has accordingly adopted, in pursuing them, the 
Inductive method. We find him in these strictly attending to 
Experience — deducing his speculative principles from facts, and 
pointing out their application to the purposes of the arts and the 
business of life. Under the term Ts^v% indeed, which we trans- 
late Art, he comprized much more than is understood by Art. 
Chemistry, for instance, might justly be referred to this branch 
of philosophy, so far as its principles are applicable to the pro- 
duction of any effect. In fact, it corresponds more nearly with 
Science, in the acceptation of the word by Bacon, or to what is 
understood by the term " Applied Science." For Aristotle himself 
expressly asserts it to be the result of Experience — observing, 
that memory of particular events or facts is the foundation of 
Experience, and that from several experiences Art is produced. 1 

So also, in his Practical philosophy, he directs us not to seek 
a speculative certainty of principles, but to be satisfied with such 
as result from the general experience of human life. He further 
even gives express caution against treating this department in the 
a priori method of his Theoretic philosophy, in remarking that 
the abstract speculation concerning * universal good " was unpro- 
fitable in that kind of inquiry. 2 Had he viewed Natural Philo- 
sophy in its application to the arts, he would surely have intro- 
duced the Inductive method there also. Indeed he has done so, 
wherever particular departments of Nature are explored in his 
writings in order to particular arts. But his works professedly 
treating of Natural Philosophy belong to a higher speculation, 
according to his estimate, than those which concern human life. 
He coDceived the things of the material world to be unoriginated 

1 Metaph. i. 1 ; Analyt. Post. ii. last chap. Mag. Mor. i. 1 ; Eth. Nic. i. 6. 



28 ARISTOTLE. 

and indestructible in their essential nature, and therefore the 
eternal objects of scientific truth, 1 whilst everything belonging to 
man was temporary and variable. The former, therefore, were 
not satisfactorily investigated until they were referred to their 
primary fixed principles ; but of the latter it was sufficient to 
obtain such knowledge as the contingency of the objects ad- 
mitted. He perceived, from his accurate and extensive know- 
ledge of human nature, that there was no ground for that realism 
in Morals which the more uniform aspect of the physical world 
tended to inculcate. The immense variety of objects to which 
the appellation of " good " was applied, impressed on his acute 
mind the conviction, that there was no one fixed and invariable 
principle implied by that term ; and that the truths of Moral 
Philosophy, accordingly, were to be sought simply in an obser- 
vation of facts, without endeavouring to trace the general facts 
thus collected to some further abstract principles. 

It will illustrate this arrangement of the sciences to look to 
the Theory of Causation, or the several classes into which ancient 
Philosophy distributed the principles of scientific investigation. 
Now, the classes of such principles assigned by Aristotle are, 
1st, The Material, or that class which comprehends all those 
cases in which the inquiry is, out of what a given effect has 
originated. From the analogy which this principle has to the wood 
or stone, or any actual matter, out of which a work of nature or 
art is produced, the name " Material " is assigned to the class. 
But it is not commonly so termed by Aristotle, whose description 
of it is more precise and just. 2 Unfortunately the term " Mate- 
rial " introduces a misunderstanding on this head. It may be 
supposed to mean something physically existing, some sensible 
matter, as wood or stone ; whereas, according to Aristotle, it 
denotes antecedents ; that is, principles whose inherence and 

1 Analyt. Post. i. c. 8 ; Ethic. Nic. vi.7. whatever the moderns may understand 

2 Nat. Ausc. ii. c. 3, to \\ oZ ymrai by that word. To them, certainly, it 
n hu*cc£%ovros, p. 330. Analyt. Post. signified no positive actual being, 
ii. c. 11, t« t'ivuv ovrav uvoiyKn <rovr Aristotle describes it as made up of 
■Jvai. Ed. Du Val. 1619. negatives, having neither quantity, nor 

"Neither Plato nor Aristotle, by matter quality, nor essence, etc." Bishop 
v\n, understood corporeal substance, Berkeley, Siris, p. 397. 



GENERAL CHARACTER OF HIS PHILOSOPHY. 29 

priority is implied in any existing thing. 1 The Material cause, 
then, is properly an intellectual principle — one of the elements into 
which the mind resolves its first rough conception of an object. 

The second class of Causes is that to which all inquiries be- 
long which respect the Characteristic nature of a thing. To this 
Aristotle gives the name of effog, species, form or exemplar. 2 It 
corresponds with what are termed in Modern Philosophy " laws of 
nature." According to Aristotle, and the Ancient philosophy in 
general, it is the abstract essence or being of a thing, — that pri- 
mary nature of it on which all its properties depend. Bacon, 
indeed, has retained the name "Form" in his Organum, and 
applied it to denote the generalizations of his philosophy 3 ; — a 
general fact, from its excluding all merely accidental circumstances, 
being in a manner the proper form of the particular facts from 
which it is inferred, under all the variety which they may exhibit. 

The third class of Causes comprehends all inquiries into the 
Motive or Efficient principles of a thing. It differs from the 
Material cause — which it resembles, so far as it is an investigation 
of antecedents — in its reference to such antecedents only as are 
the Means in order to an Effect. We may contemplate a given 
effect as such, and not simply as a mere event ; and in that case 
we inquire into the power by which it was produced, or the 
Motive cause. It is to this class that the term Cause 4 is 
popularly applied, by analogy from the works of human art, in 
which we discern the connection between means and results. Aris- 
totle, however, did not suppose that we could discover such neces- 
sary connection in Nature ; signifying by such a cause merely 
those principles under which all effects, as such, might be arranged. 

The fourth class in the ancient theory of Causation is what 
has obtained the appellation of the Final Cause, or, to express it 



1 The premises of a syllogism accord- 3 Bacon, Nov. Org. ii. 2. 

ingly are the material cause of the con- 4 The word cause is indeed, as has 

elusion. often heen pointed out, only a verbal 

2 Thus he terms it also <rx^ityfx.a, generalization of the different principles 
Nat. Ausc. ii. 2, Du Val. i. p. 330, the to which it is here applied. The Greek 
pattern, as it were, of the thing, or its word eflrtov, " account," or " reason 
archetype, in the mind. why," is nearer the truth. 



30 ARISTOTLE. 

more after the mind of Aristotle, Tendency, or an account of 
anything from a consideration of its perfect nature or tendency. 
For example, when we appeal from virtue militant in the world 
to virtue triumphant in heaven, and explain the present state of 
moral disorder, by this ultimate view of virtue, or of the end to 
which it is tending, we argue from a Final Cause in the sense of 
Aristotle. So, again, when it is argued that the eye was formed 
for seeing, because its nature is perfected in the act of seeing ; or, 
in general, whenever it is inferred that such is the nature of a 
thing, because it is test that it should be so. According to 
modern views, Design is always implied in a Final cause. In 
Aristotle, it is an intrinsic Tendency in Nature, analogous to the 
effect of Design. 

The division of Philosophy adopted by Aristotle corresponds 
with this classification of Causes. Physical science, as concerned 
about objects, of which one rises out of another, or is produced 
after another, is an investigation of Material Causes. The 
inquiry is into the law of continuation and succession observed 
in the natural world, — what the antecedents are in this course, — 
what the primary principles into which the succession of physical 
events may be resolved, or from which they may be traced. 

The First Philosophy, including Theological, Metaphysical, 
and Mathematical science, belongs to the Formal Cause. It en- 
deavours to draw forth that secret philosophy by which the mind 
administers the world of its own ideas ; and, by this process to 
arrive at those primary abstract forms which are the originals, 
and patterns, as it were, of the various actual forms of things 
throughout the Universe. 

Dialectical science, and the Arts in general, are inquiries into 
Motive Causes, since it is by the Arts that human power is 
exerted in producing certain effects. The principles of Ehetoric, 
for instance, are the means by which persuasion is effected. In 
order to produce any effect, we must observe what acts, what 
moves, what influences — not simply what precedes or follows in 
the order of nature ; and a study of this kind constitutes what 
Aristotle calls Efficient philosophy. 



GENERAL CHARACTER OF HIS PHILOSOPHY. 31 

The Final cause is the science of human actions, or Practical 
philosophy. Actions, being the exertions of the inward principles 
of our moral constitution towards some end, cannot be rightly 
estimated by viewing them merely as effects, but must be con- 
sidered in their design or tendency. A compassionate action, for 
example, may, in its actual effect, be productive of evil ; but we 
cannot conclude as to the nature of the action from this result. 
We must further inquire, whether the result was coincident or 
not with the effect intended, or what it would have been, had the 
action been perfect as the exertion of the principle ; that is, we 
must inquire into its Final cause. The same principle applies 
to the arts also, so far as the skill in any art is exerted in action. 
We then judge of the art so exemplified by its tendency to pro- 
duce the proper effect ; of the wisdom, for instance, of the poli- 
tician by the adaptation of his counsels to the welfare of his 
country — or of the military skill of the general by his plans — 
not simply by their result ; which may accidentally be untoward. 

But though this is the appropriate classification of the 
principles of the several sciences, it does not follow that any 
particular science is restricted to one particular mode of specu- 
lation. The several kinds of Causes are all employed as modes 
of analysis under the same head of philosophy. Thus an action 
may be analyzed into the affection exerted in it (the Material or 
Physical cause), the choice of the agent (the Motive cause), the 
end to which it tends (the Final cause), the definition of the 
virtue to which it belongs (the Formal cause) ; and yet the science 
of the action is fundamentally an inquiry into the Final cause. 
As all Philosophy, indeed, ultimately refers to the principles of 
the human mind, so far every science is a speculation of the 
Formal cause. In Aristotle's system of Physics, the speculation 
of the Final Cause occupies fas principal place, instead of being 
employed, as in Modern Philosophy, in subordination to the in- 
quiry into the Material and the other Causes. 

Nat. A.USC. 11. 7, Its) o' at aiTiat Tiffffa- vX'/)v, to s<5aj, to xtvfjtrav, to ov tvzxa. 
££?, Ti(>) >xaouv tov Qvo-ixov iic^ivat' xa) il; na- £g%ircii Ti roc Tgta sis ro sv vokXccxts' x. 
tra.i ce.va.ycov to c^ia, t'i ccTCooutnt (puffixcZ:, tv\v t. A. 



32 ARISTOTLE. 

THEOEETIC PHILOSOPHY. 

Physics, Mathematics, Metaphysics. 

In proceeding to examine the several sciences included in 
this threefold division of Philosophy, and contained in the 
extant writings of Aristotle, those which he has classed under 
the head of Theoretic philosophy, as being the only proper 
sciences in his view, naturally come first to be considered. These, 
then, are Physics, Metaphysics (or Theology), and Mathematics. 

There is the less occasion for considering these sciences dis- 
tinctly, as Aristotle has not strictly maiDtained their separation, 
but has often blended their different principles in the same dis- 
cussion. In this department of Philosophy he receded less from 
the dialectical system of Plato, and felt the influence of that 
system attracting him into its vortex. As Plato, by drawing off 
the attention of the philosophical inquirer from nature itself to 
the Ideas of his intellectual world, was led to confound all the 
sciences in one philosophical reverie ; so Aristotle, in the 
Theoretic branch of his philosophy, looking to the primary 
principles of the sciences as they exist in the human mind, 
rather than to the phenomena of each, was tempted to over- 
look their real differences in his mode of treating those united 
under this head. The ground of this promiscuous discussion 
is to be found in that classification which he adopts of the 
objects of these three sciences. 1 They are all, in his view, 
conversant about Tu"Ovra, or things that are ; but differing in 
the mode in which they abstract the notion of being from exist- 
ing things. The science which considers Beino: in union with 
matter, or as it is evidenced under those variations which the 
material world presents, is Physics. That which considers Being 
as it is conceived apart from the variations of the material world, 
though still not separate from matter, is Mathematics. Lastly, 
that to which the name of Metaphysics has been given by his 
commentators, but to which Aristotle himself assigns the name 

1 Metaph. vi. 1, and xiii. chap. 1, 3, 4. See also Nat. Ansc. ii. c. 2. 



THEORETIC PHILOSOPHY. 33 

of Theology, or the First Philosophy, is the science which con- 
siders Being apart both from the variations of the material world, 
and from matter. It appears, therefore, that the object of his 
inquiry in each of these three sciences is ultimately the same. 
He is engaged in all, in investigating those universal principles 
under which existing things are arranged by the mind. For this 
is the meaning of the term Being in his Philosophy. It stands for 
any of those conceptions by which the various natures or proper- 
ties of things as they exist, are represented in the mind. These 
sciences, accordingly, not differing fundamentally in his view, he 
was naturally led to combine them in one general speculation. 

Hence the abortive and futile character of his Physical 
philosophy. Instead of looking to the phenomena of the material 
world, he was employed in arguing from metaphysical and 
mathematical data, from mere abstract notions, to the realities of 
external nature. Thus, instead of being an investigation of the 
laws of nature, his system was a vain fabric of speculative 
reasoning from assumed principles. Whilst he thought that he 
was discussing and stating truths of Physical science, he was only 
analysing certain notions of the mind, and accurately defining 
them. No other method, indeed, is open to the philosopher who 
would penetrate the veil of the actual phenomena, and establish 
a certainty of science, beyond what is conceded to man, but that 
of abstract Definitions. These being once laid down, the truths 
of science follow by necessary connection ; for they are then the 
mere development of general assertions into the particulars im- 
plied in them, or connected with them. But, the certainty and 
necessity of such conclusions are nothing more than consistency 
with the original assumptions. It would be absurd to suppose 
them otherwise, because this would be to contradict what has 
been already asserted. Aristotle indeed expressly says, that 
truth of fact and truth of science are not mutually implied in 
each other. " Impossible and possible, and falsehood and truth," 
he observes, " are either hypothetical — as it is impossible for a 
triangle to have two right angles, if this is so, and the diameter 
of a square is commensurate with its side, if this is so — or 

D 



34 ARISTOTLE. 

absolute. But absolute falsehood and absolute impossibility are 
not the same ; since, for one not standing to say he is standing, 
is false, but not impossible ; and for a harper not singing to say 
he is singing, is false but not impossible ; but to stand and sit 
at once, or for the diameter to be commensurate, is not only false, 
but impossible." 1 Still he sought to unite both kinds of truth 
in his physical speculations ; and in the vain attempt, lost sight 
of the absolute truth contained in the facts presented to his 
observation. 

The first portion of his Physics, contained in a treatise in 
eight books, entitled Natural Auscultations, is devoted to inquiries 
into principles ; with a view to ascertain those fundamental con- 
ceptions from which all conclusions concerning physical objects 
were, in the a priori spirit of the whole inquiry, to be deduced. 
Agreeably to this order, he sets out with discussing the question, 
whether these principles should be ultimately referred to one or 
more than one, and laying down his own doctrine of three prin- 
ciples, under the established denominations of, 1. Matter, 2. Form, 
3. Privation. These are the principles which, as employed by 
his disciples of the middle ages, have occasioned much undue 
censure of the philosopher. His system, indeed, is sufficiently 
condemned in its hypothetical character, but is guiltless of the 
absurdity which modern refinements have cast upon it. These 
three principles rightly viewed are general conceptions of the 
mind, as it endeavours to class the various objects of the sensible 
universe, and to refer the succession of events without itself to 
some ultimate unchanging views within itself. It has been 
already stated what is meant by a material cause, the eg ov or 
vkri of Aristotle. These principles, then, are only different modi- 
fications of this cause. They are antecedents, or notions at which 
the mind ultimately arrives, in an analysis of its complex notions 
of natural objects ; and therefore antecedents, because they must 
be presupposed in every contemplation of the natural world. 
The terms by which they are denoted are merely analogical. 
Aristotle, proceeding on a principle of the Pythagorean 'school — 
1 De Ccelo, I 12, p. 449, Du Val. 



THEORETIC PHILOSOPHY. 35 

indeed the common doctrine of philosophers before him 1 — argues 
that, as contraries cannot generate contraries, there must be at 
least two opposite classes of principles. In the changes observed 
in the course of the world, one object is succeeded by another ; 
something has passed away, something is produced. Two fun- 
damental notions, therefore, are involved in every contemplation 
of nature. These accordingly are expressed by the terms Form 
and Privation ; imperfectly characterizing these subtile abstrac- 
tions, though justly, so far as the relation denoted corresponds 
with that between the present form of any material object and 
the previous forms superseded by it. For example, a statue is a 
form constituted in the stead of the rough block, and of that 
infinite multiplicity of figures of which the marble in its un- 
moul ded state was susceptible. Of these it is, as it were, " deprived," 
in the act of producing the statue. The analogy, however, is apt 
to induce us to suppose that something positive is implied by the 
terms Form and Privation in the language of Aristotle. Hence 
the ridicule with which the statement of Privation as a physical 
principle has been received. But if rightly understood, it holds 
a just and important place in the physical philosophy of Aris- 
totle. And to see the proper nature of it, it should be observed, 
that it applies no less to immaterial objects than to material. 2 
For instance, if we look at man physically, we observe that he is 
capable of moral improvement. Supposing him, then, civilized 
and improved beyond his ordinary state, we perceive in such a 
case a transition from a state of barbarism to a state of culture. 
The state of culture, then, is the Form of which Aristotle speaks ; 
the state of barbarism, which may be in infinite varieties of 
Form, the Privation. Or, a person becomes healthy from being 
diseased : health is the Form superinduced ; the Privation is of 
every species of disease. But beside those principles which are 
excluded in the physical constitution of anything, and so referred 
to the head of Privation — and those again in which the peculiar 
constitution of the thing is found to consist, and which are there- 

1 Nat. Avsc. i. 6, p. 322, Du Val. 
2 Metaph. vii. 7 and 11 ; xiv. c. 8 ; oVa u^iO/aw *o\Xa, vkw'lw P- 1003, Du Val. 



36 ARISTOTLE. 

fore referred to the head of Form — there are evidently other 
principles which remain the same in all variations of Form. The 
internal nature of physical objects subsists under all external 
changes. The notion, therefore, by which that nature is repre- 
sented to the mind, must be respected, in accounting for the 
physical constitution of a thing ; as being an antecedent out of 
which it proceeded. To this notion, or class of principles, by 
which the one common nature of all physical objects is denoted, 
Aristotle applies the name of v\ti, or matter : this notion being 
analogous to the stuff or substance of which different works of 
human art are constructed, as marble or brass is the material of 
which different statues are made. 1 

Now, beyond these abstractions, it is impossible to proceed in 
the speculation on physical existence. They comprise, in fact, 
the whole of modern investigations in physics. Modern physical 
science has followed an order exactly the reverse of that of 
Aristotle. It has ended where he began. But it has had these 
several principles in view. The dbscissio infinity prosecuted in 
the inductive method of philosophy, is analogous to the "privation" 
of the ancient system. It is a continued process of separating 
from any subject under examination, those natures or principles 
which do not constitute the proper nature of the subject, and thus 
gradually narrowing the inquiry more and more, until we have at 
last obtained some ultimate fact, expressing the proper nature of 
the thing. This ultimate fact, accordingly, Bacon terms the 
" form" of the thing, adopting the received language, whilst vary- 
ing its sense to denote the law or principle by which it exists. 
It is the result which remains to be affirmed, after rejecting and 
excluding other principles ; or, in other words, after the subject 
has been "deprived" of all those "forms" in which its proper 
nature does not consist. Again, Bacon directs that a collection 
be made of all those "instantice" instances to which the form in 
question seems to belong. These instances, so far as they agree 

1 Nat. AUSC. i. 8, 'H V vTox.iifif.vyi <pu<ri;, kou to oi/ao^tpov ix l h "V" * a /3 J <* v ir *> v f*o£<pr,v' 

i-riffrftrh kcct a.va.Xoyia.v' u? ya.^ toos outco? avrt) vr(>o; olfficcv 'ix i h xat r * T0 ^ i r 'i 

ocyl^iocvTO. %et\x,o;, *J tfgos x-Xtvyv %£\ov, v) xu) to ov. 
<rcoc tuv kXXmv ti tZ'j 1%ovtmv ftogtpriv, % uXy 



THEORETIC PHILOSOPHY. 37 

in this respect, correspond with the Material principle of Aristotle. 
They exhibit that common nature, in some one form of which the 
particular nature sought must be found. 

It is not meant here that Aristotle conceived of these prin- 
ciples according to this view of them. The design of his inquiry 
is, by an analysis of Nature, to obtain those fundamental notions 
to which all the various notions involved in the speculation of 
Nature might be referred. For he explains things that have 
their being by Nature, to be such as have in themselves a 
principle of motion and rest, as contrasted with works of art, the 
principle of which is in the artist. 1 Aristotle's object, accord- 
ingly, is to examine this inherent principle of motion and rest, 
which is the nature of a thing, and to shew how it operates in 
producing the various forms observed in the world around us. 
His error was not unlike that of one who should profess to give 
an account of visible objects solely from what they appear to the 
eye, and who should accordingly describe such objects as flat 
surfaces, variously shaded and coloured. From this view of the 
object of Natural philosophy, he was led to account for the pro- 
cesses of generation and corruption, and the changes which 
occur in bodies by alteration, increase and decrease, local motion, 
mixture. Consequently, he states the great principles of Matter, 
Form, and Privation, as generalizations of those latent processes 
by which physical effects are produced, rather than as principles 
by which the investigation of nature must be guided. Hence 
the perverse application of his physical philosophy in the middle 
ages to work transmutations in nature. The labours of the 
alchemists were nothing else but a practical realism founded on 
the speculative principles of the philosopher. 2 

The discovery of the principle to which the denomination of 
Form is assigned, is, in Aristotle's system, as in Bacon's, the 

1 Nat. AUSC. ii. C. 1, u; otl<nj s rr,; Qifftus <7rga.yftxriia,v. Also De Ccelo, i. C. 2. 



*ews 



tivo; xcci cttna; tod xivntreui xcu 



The doctrine of transubstantiation is 



ygSfAUv, h w iiTaofcu vrg&>raj; xccff uuro, xut wholly built on, and maintained by, a 

fjtM xara <ru/*fit(i'/ixo;. — Metaph. x. c. 1, logical philosophy of this kind. The 

ha, ro nifi to. 'i^ovret h avro7$ ao^viv xiw- remark will readily be extended to other 

fftu$ xu) ffroiffivi rnv rou (bvmxov irS.au.v uvui refinements of scholastic theology. 



38 ARISTOTLE. 

ultimate point of physical inquiry. The investigation of the 
principles of Matter and Privation is in order to the discovery of 
the Form, which is thus the reXog, the end, or completion of the 
process of nature. The principle of self motion, or instinctive 
tendency, which, according to Aristotle, is the proper object of 
Physics, is then traced to its effect on the thing produced, and 
we have obtained the ova/a 1 or proper being of the thing. 

From this view of the principle of Form, as the result of a self- 
working power in Nature, results the peculiar character of Aris- 
totle's Physical philosophy. He thought it evident, from such facts 
as the provident care shewn by spiders, ants, and other animals, 
and the service of the leaves of plants in protecting the fruit, 
that Nature intrinsically possessed this power of working certain 
ends. 2 The form, then, of every physical object being the attain- 
ment of such an end, and the form also constituting the being 
or nature of the object, occasion was furnished for speculating 
a priori from the supposed perfection, or view of what was best, 
in anything, to the form or law in which its nature consisted. 
This mode of speculation was embodied in those maxims of 
ancient philosophy, that " nature does nothing in vain ;" that 
" nature always works the best that the case admits ;" that 
f< nothing by nature is imperfect." 3 The consequence was, that 
the very point to be ultimately investigated was assumed at the 
outset of the inquiry, and the conclusions accordingly were only 
hypothetically and not absolutely true. And thus it is that 
Aristotle expressly admits the necessity which belongs to 
physical truths to be hypothetical — dependent, that is, on the 
assumption of the end pursued by Nature, in like manner as 
the conclusions in mathematics are dependent on the assump- 
tion of definitions. 4 

1 Hence, he observes, the term nature Polit. i. 1, o7ov yu.% exutrrov l<rn, t%s yivi- 
is metaphorically applied to denote the <nus nXiffducrris, ravrviv <pe/.[/.\v <rbv <pv<riv 
being, ova-ta, of anything (Metaph. v. uvai ixacrov, uffjri^ xvfyutfov, "vrvrov, 

C. 4). OIXICCS. 

2 Nat. Ausc. ii. c. 8, Mukurra. Vi <pavi- 8 De Anim. iii. cap. 10 and 12 ; De 
(joy liri tuv %auv x. r. x. — De Anim. iii. Ccelo, i. cap. 4, and ii. cap. 5, 8, 11 ; De 
c. 12, "Evixa. tov ya.^ oItuvtoc v-rdg%a to, Gen. et Cor. ii. c. 10; Polit. i. cap. 1,5. 
Qvtrii, »j ffvfx-rruy.a.roi. itr-rca Tuvivtxa. rov. — 4 Nat, Ausc. ii. cap. 9. 



THE0KET1C PHILOSOPHY. 39 

It is curious to observe the traces of such a doctrine in 
different systems of Philosophy, as they appear under different 
modifications. In some of the older theories, we find indications 
of it in the hypothesis of two opposing principles, as love and 
enmity, by which it was proposed to solve those appearances in 
Nature which were adverse to the notion of the tendency of 
Nature to the best. In the systems of Parmenides and Hesiod, 
love and desire — in that of Anaxagoras, intellect — were the 
expressions of this tendency. In the philosophy of Plato, it was 
evidenced in the rejection of the material world from the class 
of permanent and real existences ; this doctrine being a ready 
transition from the notion which attributed the physical consti- 
tution of things to their dependence on some primary ideal prin- 
ciples. Modern deists have argued in the same way, when they 
have rejected a Eevelation because the things contained in it did 
not correspond with what they had determined to be " best" in 
Nature. 1 In Aristotle, on the contrary, it was shewn in the 
theory of the Eternity of the Universe. For if Nature is an 
active principle, ever tending to realize in act the perfect form of 
everything, the existence of the Universe at all times is necessary 
as a condition in order to this end. 

The great doctrine of the Ancient Physics, that " nothing 
could be produced out of nothing," 2 required no distinct con- 
sideration according to the theory of Aristotle. Inquiring into 
nature simply as a principle of Motion, he was only called upon 
to shew how those changes which took place in the material 
world might be accounted for. It was no part of his philosophy 
to demonstrate that any particular element, or combination of 
elements, was employed in the laboratory of Nature for effecting 
the various productions and transmutations. All he assumes is, 
that some material or other is employed in every instance, to effect 
that perfect constitution of a thing in which its " form" consists. 
An object, indeed, is not a physical object, unless it is conceived 

1 See Bishop Butler's A nalogy,Iritvo({. (w ovros yiyntrdcu vrav I' i% b'vros, <rx,iVov 
p. 9 ; also Origen. Con. Gels. ii. p. 102, ocravruv \<rr\ xotvbv Voy^a. ruv trig) tyveiws* 
ed. Cantab. Also Nat. Ausc. i. cap. 5. 

2 Metaph. x. cap. 6, To yk^ p.*th 



:V IK 



40 ARISTOTLE. 

in conjunction with " matter." If only it lias " matter/' — that 
is, a nature capable of affecting the external senses, — what par- 
ticular kind of matter it may have, is irrelevant to his inquiry. 1 
For example, whether water or air must pre-exist in the produc- 
tion of the other of these two elements, is not the point with 
which he is concerned. It is enough that there is in every 
physical effect a principle of motion operating. It follows, from 
the existence of such a principle, that there must be also 
" matter f otherwise the material effect — the effect cognizable by 
the senses — would not have been produced. 

The analogous inquiry in his system is, what principles are 
prior in the order of transition, so that from their presence or 
absence the constitution of any particular body results \ What 
are those, in any instance, which never pass into each other, 
and of which a physical object cannot be deprived without its 
destruction ; and which may therefore be regarded as elementary 
principles. 

Hence his detailed investigation of Motion, in the technical 
sense in which the term is employed in his philosophy. In his 
system, changes of place or quantity or quality, generation and 
corruption, the action and passion of bodies, their mixture, are 
all instances of Motion. Hence also his discussion in his Physics 
of questions which, in Modern philosophy, are more properly 
regarded as the province of the metaphysician ; as the nature of 
infinity, of time, and place, etc. : all which subjects, however, 
belong to his inquiry, inasmuch as they are implied in the 
various processes of motion. 

A speculative difficulty, however, occurred in the prosecu- 
tion of this physical theory, like that which perplexed the 
material philosophers in respect to the pre-existence of matter. 
He had to account for the production by Motion of " a Form" 
not previously existing. 2 This he explained by the subtile dis- 
tinction between potential and actual being. This, in fact, is his 

1 De Gen. et Cor. i. cap. 3, T« lb tuvtcc, * roiaZf e«g* u-rorifao-Hcu, £/«- 
(pigu ovViv tov ykt> rgoTrov tyrovfttv, oiXX' ov to vvroKUfAivov. 

2 Nut. Aasc. iii. ; De Gen. et Cor. i. cap. 3. 



THEORETIC PHILOSOPHY. 41 

analysis of Motion ; Motion being the exertion in act of that 
intrinsic efficacy which is in a thing to produce a particular 
Form. He speaks of this power in Nature of working ends, as 
analogous to the skill of a person 1 working a cure of himself. 
Nature, which is thus in his view as a kind of life 2 to all exist- 
ing things, realizes in itself those principles, which are inherent 
in its constitution, before latent but now developed, when an 
actual effect takes place. Nothing, accordingly, is produced in 
his system, which was not, though in another mode, before in 
existence. What already existed potentially is produced into 
actuality and manifested to our perception in some physical 
object. 3 To describe it in terms of modern philosophy, we should 
say it was a transition from metaphysical existence to physical ; 
from the subjective to the objective ; from an object of the mind 
only cognizable by the internal principles of our constitution, to 
an object of the external senses ; — the mind perceiving the prin- 
ciple of motion as a principle, — the senses giving us the impres- 
sion of the principle moving or operating on matter. 

This doctrine of potential being, transmitted by the specula- 
tions of the schools, and perverted to realism, has given occasion 
to represent a coincidence on this point in the system of Aristotle 
with the Ideal theory of Plato, the very part of Plato's philo- 
sophy which Aristotle most directly opposed. But it should be 
observed, that the forms of which Aristotle speaks are not, like 
the ideas of Plato, separate existences, constituent of physical 
objects. They are the philosophy of nature considered as an 
instinctive principle of motion — general principles under which 
the mind classes the effects of physical power, analogously to its 
own operations when it proceeds to realize in some outward act 
any idea which it has conceived. 

Leaving then the question as to the element or material 
itself, of which physical objects are composed, untouched) Aris- 
totle examines what principles reject and exclude one another 

1 Nat. AUSC. ii. cap. 8, MaWra Ti 2 Hid, viii. cap. 1, 61'ov £u* ti$ ovau, 

drikov, otocv tis lar^iv'/i ccvros iuvrov' rovrcf ro~a <pu<rzi ffvvitrrucri Tu<rtv. 
yk£ ionctv -h Qvo-if. 3 lb. viii. c. 14. Du Val. vol. i. p. 414. 



42 ARISTOTLE. 

in the various changes of the material world. For these are the 
causes of the transitions of one nature into another, and of gene- 
ration and corruption : the presence of one involving the priva- 
tion of all those forms of matter dependent on the presence of 
the other. What these mutually excluding principles are, he 
decides by a reference to the sense of touch ; that being the 
proper evidence to us of the existence of body. Sight, indeed, 
may give us the first notices of the existence of a material thing ; 
but it does not inform us of the material nature of the thing. 
This we infer from the resistance to the sense of touch. Accord- 
ingly, Aristotle explains what is sensible to be what is tangible. 1 
The contrarieties then ascertained by touch, and which account 
therefore for all the different forms of matter, are hot and cold, 
dry and moist ; the first two as active principles, the last two as 
passive. The touch, indeed, informs us of other contrarieties, but 
they are all reducible to these four heads, with the exception of 
light and heavy. The last are excluded from the class of physical 
principles. For though, in common with other ancient philoso- 
phers, he held them to be positive and absolute natures, he found 
that they could not act on each other, and therefore could not 
effect any physical change. As hot and cold cannot co-exist, 
nor can moist and dry, these four principles admit only of four 
combinations : and the effect of each combination is a different 
element. The combination of hot and dry, is fire ; of hot and 
moist, air ; of cold and dry, earth ; of cold and moist, water. 
Any one of these elements may pass into another 2 by the priva- 
tion of one of the combined principles. In such an event, the 
contrary principle, which had been only excluded by the pre- 
sence of its contrary, combines with the remaining one. For 
example, water is transformed into air, by the privation of cold, 
and the consequent combination of hot with the moist which 
remains. Or both principles combined may be superseded by 
the two opposites, as when fire and water may be changed into 
each other. Thus there is a subordination of principles wherever 
the principle of motion is exerted in act. First, there must be 

1 De Gen. et Cor. ii. c. 2. 2 Ibid, ii. c. 4. 



THEORETIC PHILOSOPHY. 43 

matter, that is, a principle susceptible of the contrarieties ; then 
the contrarieties ; and last of all, the material elements them- 
selves. 1 When the change effected involves an entire change of 
the material from which it proceeds, the process is that of gene- 
ration and corruption. But when the change is simply in the 
affections of some existing body, as in the instance of a person 
from being unmusical becoming musical, or of the food of an 
animal being converted into its substance, the process is that of 
alteration. 2 

Thus does Aristotle account for all the changes which take 
place in the world immediately about us. Whether we observe 
things generated, or altered in their sensible qualities, or varied 
in bulk, or place (and to one or another of these every physical 
effect may be referred), the changes observed may be traced to 
the operation of a principle which is either one of these four 
already mentioned, or some modification of them. Tor all the 
intermediate principles between two contrarieties, or the degrees 
of them, are to be regarded as contrary, and capable therefore of 
effecting physical changes in the same manner as the extremes. 

But the changes which occur immediately in the world 
around us, constituted, in the view of the ancient philosopher, a 
very inferior part of the objects of Physical science. The lumi- 
naries of the superior celestial world were regarded by Aristotle 
as more excellent than man, and the study of their laws as a 
higher employment of the intellect than the philosophy of human 
life. 3 Besides, however, the intrinsic excellence of this branch 
of physics, it demanded his attention from its necessary connec- 
tion with the development of his theory of Motion. Now, all 
other physical changes imply local change. Local change may 
therefore be inferred to be prior to every other. 4 Further, to keep 
up the constant succession of generation and corruption which is 
carried on in the world, and the passing of one nature into 
another, there must be some principle ever in actual being. But, 

1 De Gen. et Cor. ii. C. i, hp>U$ V% (pufth (th iivctt rtva vkyiv Ttvoc tuv ffcoparuv ruv 
Mifffarajv, uXXa tccvtyiv ov xugurriiv, ctkk' ecu /ait ivotvricoa-ius, *• **. *. Ibid, 1. C. 4. 

3 Eth. Nic. vi. c. 7. 4 Metaph. iii. c. 2, p. 860 ; Mag. Mor. i. c. 33. 



44 ARISTOTLE. 

no other than the revolution of the heavenly bodies continuing 
incessantly, this alone exhibits a principle of local motion 
adequate to the effect. Aristotle, accordingly, was led to specu- 
late on the motions of the heavens, in order to trace up the 
propagation of Motion in this lower world, through its successive 
impulses, to the First Mover. This being discovered, his philo- 
sophy of Nature is completed : since Nature is then fully explored 
according to his analysis, as the principle of motion and rest. 

His whole astronomy is deduced from the notions of light- 
ness and heaviness, as intrinsic and absolute properties of bodies. 
He considers lightness the same as positive tendency upwards, 
and heaviness as positive tendency downwards. But this view 
implied that there were certain fixed points, the extremes to 
which these qualities of bodies tended, and in which bodies natu- 
rally rested as they possessed either lightness or heaviness. 
Each of the material elements, accordingly, had its proper place 
in the universe, • corresponding to the degree of lightness or 
heaviness which he conceived them to possess, both absolutely 
in themselves, and relatively to each other. Fire he placed in 
the extreme point upwards, earth in the lowest ; air next to fire, 
and water next to earth. Each of these elements, therefore, he 
iargued, as naturally tending either upwards or downwards, 
moved in a straight line, and could not consequently move 
naturally in a circle. Hence the earth must be at rest, and 
therefore be the centre of the universe. For if it revolved round 
the sun, as the Pythagoreans thought, it would be moving unna- 
turally, and therefore could not move eternally. Hence, also, 
no revolving body could consist of any of the four material 
elements. It must be some other material, some other element, 
to which circular motion was as natural as rectilineal motion is 
to earth or fire. 

On the ground of such speculative notions Aristotle pro- 
ceeding in constructing his system of the Universe ; in opposition 
to the more enlightened conclusions of the Pythagorean, and the 
records of Egyptian and Babylonian 1 observations on the heavens. 

1 Metaph. i. 1 . Herodot. Euterp. 109. 



THEORETIC PHILOSOPHY. 45 

In some instances, indeed, his view was more correct. He 
admits the spherical 1 form of the earth, from the evidence of 
lunar eclipses, in which he had remarked that it always exhibits 
a curved outline ; and infers its magnitude to be not very great, 2 
from the variation of horizon consequent on a little variation of 
our position on its surface. But, in acknowledging these facts 
he was influenced by their accordance with his speculations 
a 'priori, as he rejected or misinterpreted other facts from their 
repugnance to these speculations. For the spherical form of the 
earth resulted from his theory of heaviness. It was the effect 
of the tendency of all the particles of the earth to the lowest 
point ; this lowest point being a centre of the two opposite 
hemispheres of the heavens. For, that the whole heavens were 
spherical, he supposed a necessary consequence of the perfection 
belonging to them, a solid being the perfect mathematical dimen- 
sion. The tendency, consequently, of all the particles of the 
earth to the lowest point, was a tendency towards a middle ; or 
this lowest point would be a centre round which the earth would 
adjust itself in a spherical mass. 

The reason assigned by Aristotle for the revolutions of the 
heavens, as appears, then, is precisely opposite to that of modern 
philosophy. He conceived revolution to be performed, not in 
consequence of a tendency to the centre, but of the absence of 
any such tendency in the revolving body. Eevolution and 
gravity are, according to him, contradictory terms. The motions 
of the several heavenly bodies result from their being carried 
round by spheres, which consist of this revolving element. That 
they do not revolve in themselves he considers to be evident 
from the fact that the moon always presents the same side 
towards us. They are incapable indeed of motion in themselves, 
he argues, in being spherical, nature seeming purposely to have 
denied them all power of motion in giving them the form least 
apt for motion. They revolve, therefore, from being bound in 

1 He speaks of it in Meteor, ii. c. 5, p. 562, as shaped like a tympanum. 

2 Mathematicians, he says, had computed its circumference to he 400,000 stades, 
or ahout 40,000 miles. 



46 ARISTOTLE. 

revolving spheres, the first in order of which is that in which 
the fixed stars are placed, and then the several planets (five in 
number), the sun, and next to the earth the moon; 1 and to 
account for the apparent irregularities in the motions of the 
heavenly bodies, he supposes, following the theory of Eudoxus, 2 
that there were as many additional spheres employed in the 
revolutions of each body as it appeared to have different motions. 

The oblique motion of the sun, viewed in connection with 
the successive renewals and decays of nature, as he approaches 
or recedes from the earth, suggested the most ready link for 
connecting the phenomena of the earth with those of the heavens. 
It is, accordingly, to the revolution of the sphere of the sun, that 
Aristotle ascribes the continuation of generation and corruption 
in unbroken series, and the consequent perpetuity of being in 
the world around us. It might be supposed that generation and 
corruption would be carried on at equal intervals. But the 
unequal temperament of material things prevents such a uni- 
formity ; and occasions that variety of duration, which we 
observe in different things within the sphere of the moon, the 
sublunary world, or the limits of Nature properly so called. 3 

Still, however, it remained to be explained what it was that 
imparted to the sphere of the sun, as well as to the several other 
spheres, their principle of motion. To every thing that is itself 
moved there must be a mover : and the successive motions, there- 
fore, as communicated from sphere to sphere, must be traced up 
to some first principle, itself unmoved, in which they originate. 

Here, then, we discern the close connection of Aristotle's 

1 The Pythagoreans connected with this as what may reason ably be thought; 
this notion the beautiful fancy of the leaving, he says, the assertion of its 
music of the spheres. Aristotle expresses necessity to others more positive, \<rx v Z°- 
his admiration of the thought, but denies rego/s, than himself, p. 1003, Du Val. 
its possibility. The stars move with Eudoxus of Cnidus went into Egypt 
the spheres, he says, like the parts of a about 368 b.c. and introduced the regu- 
ship with the ship, and therefore can lar astronomy from Egypt into Greece, 
make no sound. (De Ccelo, ii. 9.) Aristotle gives him the high praise of 

2 Metaph. xiv. c. 8. Eudoxus assigned recommending his theory of Pleasure as 
fifty-five spheres on the whole; or, de- the Chief Good, by the distinguished 
ducting those added to the sun and morality of his life. (Eth. Nic. x. 2.) 
moon, forty-seven. Aristotle only states 3 De Gen. et Cor. ii. c. 10. 



THEORETIC PHILOSOPHY. 47 

Physics with his Metaphysics ; and at the same time the ground 
of his applying to the latter science the designation of Theology. 
The several spheres of the heavens, differing in element from 
the bodies of this lower world, and pursuing their unceasing and 
immortal revolutions, presented a distinct class of ofa/a/, beings, 
or substances, to the speculation of the philosopher. To ascertain 
that in which they moved and had their being, was an inquiry, 
with regard to them, analogous to his investigation of the principle 
of Motion in the natural world. This principle of motion to 
these celestial substances would be Being itself, or the very vital 
Energy in which they had their being. 1 At the same time, in 
exploring this primary Being, he would be tracing those general 
principles by which the mind held together the various objects 
of physical contemplation to one primary law or master-principle, 
in which, as in a single theorem, all the truths of philosophy 
should be comprized. 2 

This intimate connection of Theology with Metaphysics, in 
the Ancient Philosophy, was a natural consequence of the 
separation which heathenism established between Theology and 
Eeligion. In the civilized states of antiquity, Eeligion was pur- 
sued only as a matter of public policy, and not as a rule of life to 
the individual. Whatever was the established creed of the state, 
it was the recognized duty of the good citizen to support as 
established. Not involving any question of truth or falsehood 
in the particular creed adopted, it readily admitted of any addi- 
tions of superstition not repugnant to the laws and manners of 
the state ; but imperiously rejected all questioning of the funda- 
mental assumption of the importance of that which was estab- 
lished. 4 It may be said to have been the great principle of 

1 Nat. Ausc. viii. c. 4, 5, 6,8; Me- Socrates is, "SopuvoXtas. See also Polyb. 
taph. xiv. c. 6 and 7. vi. 56. 

5 tit j. t. ••• n -r n v, , 4 Even Aristotle says that there are 

1 Metaph. 111. 2, j$ uiv yap upy;ixcoToiT'/i . . , \ , .,, 

' C, f, X , ,«,, some who are not to be argued with ; 
xai nyiuovixurar^. xxt rj uo-vrip dovXa,; ovb , ... i . • i 

- x * ' , / */ e and mentioning such as require punish- 

avruvrnv <r«s «XXaj iTta-rnLLKi dixaiov, v ,, ,, . . , . . 

«. , \ * a -' t ment rather than argument, he instances 

7ov TiKovi xxi TocyocSov rotetwrv). , , . . . 

in those who question "whether one 

3 See Xenophon's Memorab. iv. c. 4. ought to honour the gods, or love 

The great rule of piety inculcated by parents." Top. i. See also Eudem. i.e. 3. 



48 ARISTOTLE. 

their religion, that it should be made no question of truth and 
falsehood. The religious instincts of the human heart were 
under such a system at once gratified and diverted from their 
proper end. Their strength was spent in the vain amusement of 
festal ceremonies, and their purity corrupted by demoralizing 
orgies. In this state of things, the better and wiser part of men 
were driven into a metaphysical religion. They could not 
acquiesce in the views of the Deity presented by the popular 
superstitions. Yet the subject could not but recur to them in 
the reasonings of their hearts, as soliciting earnest inquiry. 
They searched for God, accordingly, not seeking what to do, but 
what to 'know. Whatever the truth concerning Him might be, 
it was not to be expressed in the uplifting of pure hearts and 
hands to Him. Though the whole world might be found his 
temple, He was not to be worshipped as the Holiness of their 
shrines. Though the heavens were telling of his glory, and the 
stars were singing together for joy at his presence, yet no praise 
was to ascend to Him, the Lord of heaven and earth, in the per- 
fumes of their altars, or the poetry and music of their hymns. 
Thus devotion, being banished from the heart, sought a refuge for 
itself in the wilderness of a speculative theological philosophy. 
Hence Socrates and Plato, and Aristotle and Cicero, and other 
illuminated sages of heathenism, continued, without hypocrisy, 
professors of the established religion, whilst they aspired after 
a purer knowledge of God in the thoughtful abstractions of their 
own intellect, and the cultivation of their natural sense of the 
sacred Law of Conscience. 

Looking, then, at the admirable order of the heavenly bodies, 
the philosopher saw, in their unvarying regularity, the immutable 
and eternal nature of the great Principle on which their motions 
depended. He did not, it seems, attribute to them a proper 
divinity in themselves ; for he refers their perpetuity of motion 
to the ultimate principle or First Mover, the Deity of his system. 
But he speaks as if they possessed a divine nature. 1 He also 

1 Metaph. xiv. 8. p. 1003, ed. DuVal. tive and ancient men, left to those after 
"It has been handed down by the prinii- them in the figure of myth, that these 



THEORETIC PHILOSOPHY. 49 

says that we must think of them as partaking of life and action. 
He must be supposed, however, by such expressions, to be giving 
only an analogical description of the perfection in which they 
display the efficacy of the First Great Principle. Contrasted 
with the unstable things of the earth, they evidence the Principle 
of Motion perpetually operating without interruption ; whereas 
the successions of generations and corruptions about the earth 
only approximate to the perpetuity of the heavenly motions. 
We ought indeed to interpret in the same manner his ascription 
of power to Nature as a Principle of Motion. It seems as if he 
was excluding the agency of Deity. But in truth he is only 
tracing the mode of the operation of the First Principle. For 
he thinks that all things attain the good of their nature, so far 
as they have something divine actuating them. It is this divinity 
in them which is the primary source of all perceptions of 
pleasure. 1 Further, it is the indistinct apprehension of the same 
that he supposes to be the motive of exertion in all things that 
are capable of action, though they may be unconscious of its 
being so. 2 Hence it has been maintained, that the doctrine of 
Aristotle differed but little from the pantheism of the modern 
infidel. 3 The operations of Nature, then, as well as the revolving 
spheres of the heavens, are divine, inasmuch as they illustrate 
more or less perfectly the animating principle of all Motion, — 



are Gods, and that the Divinity also en- like relics, have survived up to the pre- 

compasses universal nature. But all else sent time. Now our traditionary opi- 

has been fabulously associated for influ- nion, and that derived from the first 

ence with the multitude, and for its use men, so far only, is manifest to us," 

in respect to the laws and expediency. , ~ 7 , r . .. .,_ , ^ . 

r , ,, n , ni -nth. JSlC. Vll. C 13, <xa,vra. yuo (bvaii 
.bor they say tbat these are ot human 



form, and like some of the other living 



i%u ti h7ov, x. r. A. 



beings; and other things, they say, con- 2 Ibid. x. 3, "eras % »ai lv ro7s (pxvXoig, 

sequent on, and similar to those men- *. r. k.; also, 3Ietaph. xiv. 7, p. 1000, 

tioned. From which accounts should one Du Val ; Polit. vii. 3, <r%oX/i yu.% av o his 

separate and take that only which was 'i%ot xu\u$, xa.) 7ra,s o xo<r/u.o;, x. r. A. ; 

first ; that they conceived the first Beings also Be Ccelo, i. 9. In Be Anim. i. 3, 

to be Gods ; he might consider it to have he substitutes " the Deity," where, ac- 

been divinely said ; and that, as pro- cording to his usual mode of speaking, 

bably each art and philosophy has been he would say " Natm*e," zairot y ixfiv 

often discovered to the utmost and again rh foov, x. r. x. p. 625, Du Val. 

lost, so also that these their opinions, 3 See Bayle's Bict., article Aristotle. 



50 ARISTOTLE. 

the operation of Deity itself. At the same time, there is no 
notion of Deity inculcated under the idea of the Creator and 
Governor of the Universe. It is simply as the Life of the 
Universe — the Intellect — the Energy — as what gives excellence, 
and perfection, and joy to the whole system — that his philosophy 
sets forth the notion of Deity. It is, in short, pure Being, 
abstracted from all matter, and therefore only negatively defined 
as without parts or magnitude, impassible, invariable, eternal. 
But whilst his system included no providence, 1 it has the merit 
of excluding the operation of fortune and accident. These, he 
observes, are not capable of being causes of any thing ; they are 
merely descriptions of what takes place contrary to some pre- 
supposed design, or some tendency in Nature. 2 

In his Metaphysics, properly so called, he considers this 
First Principle strictly in a metaphysical point of view. His 
professed object here is, to inquire into " Being so far forth as it 
is Being, and the general properties belonging to it as such." 3 
Having traced the changes which occur about the earth to a 
fixed principle, he had presented one unchangeable point of view 
in which the human mind might contemplate the vast and rest- 
less variety of physical objects. It remained for him, then, to 
examine this principle in itself, in order to attain a sure and 
perfect science, the highest and first Philosophy, in the know- 
ledge of the fixed and immutable, and necessary. 

1 There is a passage in his Ethic. benevolence of the Deity cannot he sup- 

Nicom. x. 8, in which he alludes to posed the same as good fortune s£<rt>%iet, 

the supposition of a divine superintend- because it is not reasonable that the 

ence, l<rtf*ix$i») but he there evidently Deity should superintend, or take care 

makes the appeal rhetorically, to recom- of, I<rt/u.i\s7er0ci/, the bad ; and we observe 

mend that cultivation of the intellect in the bad sometimes fortunate, 

which he places man's highest happi- 2 This view of Fortune agrees with 

ness. A further evidence of this is, his the remark in Thucydides, that "we 

speaking of gods in the plural in that are accustomed to charge Fortune with 

passage. At any rate, the superintend- whatever happens •xu.qk Xoyov, out of, or 

ence here spoken of is distinct from beside, the course of reason," Book i. 

what we mean by Providence, as he chap. 140. Aristotle has expressed the 

does not suppose it extended over the same in his Hhetorie, i. c. 5, Jfrm Ts xu) 

bad as well as the good. In his Magna tuv vra^a. Xoyov uyaOZv uWia. rv^r,. 

Moralia, ii. o. 8 (Du Val, vol. ii. p. 185), 3 Nat. Ausc. ii. 6, 7, 8 ; Metaph. 

he argues that the superintendence and xiii. 8. 



THEORETIC PHILOSOPHY. 51 

This employment of the term "Being" may give the appear- 
ance of the investigation being concerned with positive objective 
realities, independent of the human mind for their existence. 
But though his mode of expression, and perhaps his example in 
some parts of his Metaphysics, may have afforded occasion to 
the ontology of the schools, he cannot justly be charged with the 
realism and absurdity of that system. These may be traced 
chiefly to a circumstance already adverted to — the introduction 
of Aristotle's philosophy into the Western Church by the medium 
of Latin translation. The term ova'a, by which he denotes exist- 
ence in the abstract, as distinct from any object of which it is 
affirmed, having been rendered in Latin by substantia, it came to 
be supposed that the natures or principles represented by the 
the term had a real subsistence. Thus the doctrine of Aristotle 
respecting Being was understood in a sense precisely the reverse 
of that which the philosopher himself intended. The analogy on 
which the application of the term substantia to metaphysical 
subjects was founded, became obscured by the actual force of 
the term itself. Instead of its being regarded as denoting only 
a relation between our conceptions corresponding to that between 
a thing supported and what supports it, the idea was suggested 
of an external objective reality, or even of a material nature, as 
implied by the term. 

Eightly, however, to understand Aristotle's notion of Being, 
as it is the object of his Metaphysics, we should distinguish 
between Being as it is in nature generally, and as it is conceived 
in the human mind. For it is in this last sense that it must be 
understood, when it is stated to be the object of the universal 
science ; since there is no other sense in which Being which is 
not in anything can be affirmed, but as it is the pure object of 
intellect, or exists in the intellect solely. Looking, then, at 
Nature at large, we must apply Being, in its first and proper 
sense, to individual objects really existing in themselves ; and, in 
a secondary sense, to the attributes of such : because, the first 
notion of Being in Nature is suggested by the actual existence 
of the object ; and our next notions result from the operations 



52 ARISTOTLE. 

of our minds about the object already presupposed in exis- 
tence. But the case is different when the objects whose 
being we are considering are pure objects of intellect. Here 
the abstract notions of things are the first in order: 1 these 
are, relatively to the mind, the realities about which it is 
engaged ; whereas the actual objects in nature are, in this 
point of view, the secondary beings. The reason is, that 
an object of the mind, as such, exists in its proper nature when 
it is entirely abstracted from all matter, but loses that nature 
in proportion as it is viewed in any actual form of physical 
existence. 

Hence, in the science of Metaphysics, the proper if not the 
only substance, or ou<r/a, is the form or abstract nature of things. 2 
This, as explained by Aristotle, is the exemplar or representation 
in the mind of a thing as it exists in Nature. As, then, the 
primary substances in Nature are the things themselves as they 
are found and observed in Nature, so the primary substances in 
the world of the mind are those abstract forms by which the 
truth and reality of things are there shadowed out. The science 
of Metaphysics, then, is strictly conversant about these abstract 
intellectual forms, just as Natural Philosophy is conversant about 
external objects of which the senses give us information. 

The object, then, of Aristotle in his Metaphysics is, to explain 
the nature of those general notions by which the mind represents 
to itself, and translates, as it were, into its own language, the 
objects without it, and speculates about them. Hence, in tech- 
nical terms, he speaks of this science as the science of First 
Causes — the First Philosophy — or by the general titles of Philo- 
sophy and Theology. A science such as this, corresponds with 
what modern writers have designated the Philosophy of the 
Human Mind. They, indeed, have directed their attention 
rather to the powers and operations of the mind ; the study of 
which, in his view, belongs to Physics. He, however, has con- 
fined himself— in those books at least which, as a sequel to 

1 Metapll. xiii. C. 4, tyiv Ti <r/>urnv ilon- r« l><Xox.uu.zvu. itrrtv, a.\\' ov% tj irtpcv 
xu[/,iv itfurrnfJt.Yiv rovruv iivxi, x.aff offov o'vrx <ri. 2 Ibid. "vii. 5. 



THEORETIC PHILOSOPHY. 53 

the Physical, have obtained, from that circumstance, the name 
of the Metaphysical — to the objects about which the mind is 
immediately conversant. 1 

In this inquiry, Aristotle had to encounter two extremes of 
opinion maintained by philosophers before him — the doctrine of 
Protagoras, Empedocles, and others, who held that there was no 
fixed standard of thought — no absolute reality, — but that every- 
thing was relative to human perception ; and the imaginary 
theory of Plato, which, by the hypothesis of self- existent Ideas, 
introduced a subtile materialism into the philosophy of mind, 
whilst, no less than the former theory, it made the external world 
a land of shadows and unrealities. 

He points out the practical absurdity of the former opinion, 
according to which contradictories were equally true, and every 
proposition was equally true and equally false — by asking 



c 



" why a man walks to Megara, and does not remain still, think- 
ing that he is walking ; why he does not go down a well or a 
precipice, as it may happen, the first thing in the morning, but 
appears to use caution, as not equally thinking the falling in to 
be good, and not good?" 3 Again, that men do not regard all 
notions as equally true, is plain, he observes, from this, that " no 
one who may have supposed himself during the night at Athens, 
when in Libya, walks to the Odeum." 4 He refutes, however, 
this sceptical doctrine more expressly, by distinguishing between 
the reality of things as they exist absolutely or relatively to our 
perceptions. There may be no reality of Being, either in that 
which is perceived, or in the perception, these being affections of 
the percipient power. But it is impossible, that there should 
not really exist some objects externally, which produce the per- 
ception, and are independent of perception. Whereas those who 
make Being dependent on perception, by asserting that whatever 
appears is true, imply that nothing would exist if there were no 
living creatures. 5 Hence it appears that Aristotle virtually 

1 Ta fiircc roc. tpvffixdi. uvcti, fjurin rk xttr&rifiara, "<rw$ ikrMs' ^ov 

2 Ibid. iv. c. 4; Du Val, ii., p. 876. yao aitrfavoftivov vrd.6o$ rovr'o lerri' to ol 

3 Ibid. iv. C. 5. 4 Ibid. iv. 4, 5. to. vffoxtlfiivu ftk uvxi a foiii Tr,i a"nr$r,9W) 
5 Ibid. iv. 5, ro ftlv ouv fjivrt ra xto-fara. xcu ccvtv a.}<x6f,<rict>s, a^uvarov. 



54 AK1ST0TLE. 

admits the distinction made by modern metaphysicians between 
the primary and secondary qualities of matter. He affirms, that 
whilst we have ideas of things without us which are simply 
our own perceptions, or acts of the perceiving mind, there must 
also be some really existing natures without us on which these 
perceptions are founded. 

The Ideal theory of Plato tended to the same scepticism as 
the doctrine of these elder philosophers, but on a different prin- 
ciple. Plato destroyed all the certainty of our knowledge, by 
fixing the objects of it entirely out of the range of human intel- 
lect, and teaching men to abandon the information of the senses 
and experience, in the pursuit of abstract Ideas, the imaginary 
archetypes or exemplars of the things of the sensible world. He 
established in his system other beings separate from Nature as 
the objects of Philosophy; whilst his predecessors denied that 
there were any proper objects founded in Nature. But both he 
and they equally removed all grounds of conviction from the 
mind of man. Aristotle, accordingly, strenuously combats the 
doctrine of Ideas as adverse to all sound speculation. He loses 
no opportunity, in the course of his discussions, of alluding to it 
and refuting it. 1 He speaks of it as overthrowing all science, by 
multiplying, instead of reducing to certain definite principles, 
the variety of the objects of contemplation. " It is like," he says, 
" any one wishing to reckon, but who, thinking himself unable 
when he had less, should make more, and then reckon." 2 

The Ideal theory was, as has been before remarked, a. modifi- 
cation of the Pythagorean theory of Numbers, or a mixture of 
logical and mathematical truth. Hence the importance assigned 
by Plato to Mathematics, as introductory to the philosophy of 
the Ideas. The theory of Pythagoras was, it seems, purely 
mathematical. It appears to have been an application of the 
properties of numbers to the solution of the phenomena of the 
universe. Plato proceeded a step further, and endeavoured more 

1 Gen. et Cor. ii. 9; Analijt. Post. i. 5; Atticus apud Euseb. Prozp. Evang. 
8, 19; Eth. Nic. i. c. 4; Metaph. xii. 4, xv. c. 13; Plutarch adv. Colot. 
2 Metaph. i. c. 7, and xi. c. 4. 



THEORETIC PHILOSOPHY. 00 

distinctly to account for the great variety of objects by the help 
of the abstractions of language. Still he retained so much of the 
mathematical conception as to make the knowledge of the Ideas 
dependent on the knowledge of mathematics ; describing the 
objects of mathematics as intermediate to the Ideas and sensible 
objects. 1 Aristotle shews, then, in opposition both to the Pytha- 
goreans and to Plato, that there are no such principles as 
Numbers or Ideas really existent in Nature as primary and 
constituent elements of things. 

There is no point, in fact, on which Aristotle has spoken 
more plainly than in denying a separate existence to those 
secondary natures, which, in the language of the schools, were 
afterwards called Universals. It is to individuals alone that he 
allows a real existence. 2 He remarks, that when any principle 
is asserted of several things, it is by analogy ; as in fact there 
are distinct principles in each distinct thing ; " for the particular 
is the principle of the particulars in each thing." 3 Thus, " whilst 
the universal man is the principle of man, Peleus is the father 
of Achilles — your own father of yourself." In things generically 
distinct, as colours and sounds, the principles differ, but are the 
same by analogy. In things specifically the same, the principles 
differ, not in species, but as they are distinct in each individual ; 
e.g., the matter, the form, and the moving power, are distinct in 
this and that man ; but in the general principle, rw xa66}.ov \6yu, 
they are the same." So clearly has he laid it down, that none 
but individuals have a positive absolute existence, and that all 
other beings are relative to these, and results of the operation of 
our minds about them. 

In extending our survey to the several subjects included in 
the metaphysical books, we must remember, that the science of 
which he is treating had hitherto been blended with logic under 
the general name of Dialectic. It was hardly to be expected, 
therefore, that Aristotle, in making the separation, should alto- 

1 See Plato De JRepub. vii. ; Aristot. 2 Categ. c. 5; Metaph. vii. c. 13; 

Metaph. xii. Annal. Post. i. 31. 

3 Metaph. xiv. 4 and 5, fyx* y«.o ro Kuf ikuo-tov tuv y.u.& ixxtrrov. 



Ob AKISTOTLE. 

gether forget the prejudice which had united them. Nor must 
we wonder, therefore, that much of the work should he employed 
in discussing the meaning of terms, and in observations addressed 
rather to the disputant in words, than to the inquirer into prin- 
ciples of Philosophy. But we should be too hasty in judgment, 
if we condemned such discussions as foreign to the purpose of 
the metaphysician. The accurate examination of the notions 
expressed by such terms as being, oneness, sameness, contrariety, 
power, is illustrative of the connections of our ideas ; for these 
terms are not dependent on the peculiarities of any one language, 
but are uniform characters of human thought. It is a curious 
and important inquiry, accordingly, to ascertain that connection 
of ideas of which these terms are the expressions ; to trace, for 
example, the various modes of thought to which the term con- 
trariety applies, or which are characterized under the description 
of qualities. 

The inquiry, then, into Mind, considered in itself as a prin- 
ciple of life, and thought, and action, forms no part of Aristotle's 
Metaphysics. In his philosophy such an inquiry belongs to 
Physics ; since he regards Mind only as a principle connected 
with matter. This inquiry he has prosecuted in a Treatise On 
the Soul, or Life, and in several smaller treatises On the Parts 
and Motions of Animals, on Perception, On the Duration of Life, 
Youth and Old Age, Life and Death, Respiration, Memory, Sleep 
and Waking, and On Dreaming. To these should be added the 
book On Physiognomy, and his larger work the Treatise on Ani- 
mals ; which, though properly a work of Natural history, is also 
illustrative of the nature of Soul, or the living principle in all 
animated, material beings. In these several works, there is less 
of mere speculation, and a more distinct evidence of that power 
of real philosophy, the d-ova/uig amy.vnxf], which he so eminently 
possessed. We find him stating and examining facts, 1 and drawing 
from them conclusions in the spirit of a modern inquirer, though 
at the same time with the severe accuracy of his own method. 

1 Ho speaks of this part of his philosophy as an inquiry ; rhv rris -^v^s 'Vra^'ay. 
De Anim. i. 1. 



THEORETIC PHILOSOPHY. 57 

The ingenuity of the Ancient philosophers was exhausted in 
attempting to assign the nature of the Soul or living principle. 
There was no one of the elements, except earth, which did not 
find its advocate in some theory of the Soul. It was represented 
also as a combination of all elements ; or as blood ; or intrinsic 
motion : or a harmony and conjunction of contraries. Aristotle, 
pursuing the method of his Physics, wisely avoids endeavouring 
to refer the soul to any particular class of material objects ; ex- 
plaining the nature of it, as it instances the union of the two 
principles, matter and form, in a common result. It is an in- 
stance of the principle of matter, so far as there must be an 
organized body susceptible of life in everything that lives. It is 
an instance of the principle of form, so far as that nature, in 
which the life of the creature consists, is perfectly developed in 
the animated body. His definition, accordingly, maintains the 
distinctness of body and soul l as two principles combined, with- 
out defining what the soul is in itself. He illustrates their union 
by the analogy of the eye and the sight. 2 There must be the 
eye in order to sight ; but the eye, though perfect in its structure, 
is not an eye unless the principle of sight be superadded. 

Thus, considering the principle of life as distinct from the 
organization with which it is connected, he proceeds to inquire 
into its laws, by examining the mode of its operation. He 
divides its mode of operation into five classes, according to the 
objects about which it is exercised. It is, 1st, a principle of 
nutrition, in which respect it is common to vegetables and 
animals ; 2dhj, of perception ; Sdly, of appetites and affections ; 
Uhly, of intellect ; othly, of locomotion. Wherever there is per- 
ception, there are also, he states, appetites and affections ; 3 and 

1 De Anini. ii. 2, xa) ^iu rovra xa\u; 3 Ibid. ii. 3, u> §' ccicrHrttTi; v<rcip%ii } 
t/Xokxfjt-foaivovffiv, o\$ %ox.i7 /x.r,r ccviv <rcufta.ro; tovtu y^ovy, rt xcu \v<ryi, x. t. A. p. 633. 

ihcu, fjcnn o-cZfjt.cc ti •v^y^jj* ffufca. fth yko De Animal. 3Iotione, c. 10, he compares 

obx itTTt, erufjLctroi Vi ti, x. t. X. p. 633, the operation of the soul on the different 

Du Val. 'EvTa^s/av appellat novo parts of the body of animals, to a well- 

nomine, quasi quandam continuatam ordered state, in which the various 

motionem et perennem. (Cicero, Tmc. offices are regularly administered with- 

Qu. i. 10.) out requiring the presence of the mon- 

2 De Anim. ii. 1, u yao % v h l(Q6a.\fjt.o$ arch on each occasion. (P. 709, Du 
Z,Z> ov, ypu%b av al/TCf n* h o^'S, k, t. X. p. Val.) 

631. 



58 ARISTOTLE. 

consequently all these modes of operation of the living principle 
are evidenced in brutes, with the exception of intellect, which 
belongs to man exclusively. 

His observations on Perception are highly important, as tend- 
ing to shew the existence of living powers in animals, distinct 
from the organs by which those powers are displayed. He affirms 
that there is always a medium interposed between the perceiving 
power and the object perceived, — appealing to the sense of sight. 
Sight, he observes, is not produced by placing the object on the 
eye, nor yet can be produced by the object itself at a distance. 
It must result then, from something intervening between the eye 
and the object, so as to make an impression from the object on 
the eye. He mistakes, indeed, the nature of this medium, con- 
ceiving light to be the active development of the nature of 
transparency in some body, as in air or water, 1 and not material 
or capable of motion. 2 But the conclusion itself is just. And 
it serves to shew that the eye 3 perceives only as an instrument 
of comnrunication with external objects to an internal power of 
the soul. The senses which appear to militate with this conclu- 
sion are those of touch and taste. For these seem to be produced 
immediately, without any interposed medium. But there is no 
reason, he argues, to conclude the flesh to be the feeling power 
in itself 4 because it acts instantaneously. For an artificial 
membrane spread over the body would produce the like instan- 
taneous effect ; and supposing the air to grow all around us, we 
should in like manner have immediate perception of all objects 
of sense, and thus appear to have perceptions of sight, and hear- 
ing, and smelling, by one sense. 

Perception, then, according to Aristotle, is the power of the 
soul to receive immaterial impressions from material objects ; as 
the wax receives impressions of a seal without the brass or gold 
of which the seal is made. The impressions thus received, he 
regards, as the basis of all our knowledge ; insomuch that a 

1 De Anim. ii. c. 7, k V hri"k'ix ua - T0 " on b"> V ^'^f^h so f ar forth as it is trans- 

$ix<pxvou; <pw; i<rri, p. 3G9. De Sensu et parent, no otherwise than water or air. 

Sensil. c. 2. 2 De Anim. ii. c. 7. (Be Sens, et Sensil. p. 664, Du Val.) 

3 The eye, he says afterwards, sees * De Anim. u. c. 11, p. 6-44. 



THEORETIC PHILOSOPHY. 59 

creature destitute of perception would be incapable of under- 
standing and learning. Touch 1 is the sense indispensable to 
existence, and the only one so indispensable. All the other 
senses, he says, have been added for the good and perfection of 
the animal — rou el sWxa. The sensations are distinct, however, 
from the ideas of the mind. The sensations in themselves are 
never delusive. The same thing is always sweet or always 
bitter. But the same sensations may be followed by different 
ideas in different minds. To a sick person, what is naturally 
sweet may seem bitter, or, from accidental position with respect 
to the spectator, an object may appear different from what it is ; 
as, for example, the diameter of the sun. To the ideas thus 
formed immediately from Perception, Aristotle gives the name 
of phantasms ; and the power of Perception thus modified, he 
calls Phantasia or Imagination. 2 The delusiveness sometimes 
attributed to the senses themselves originates in this faculty 
of imagination consequent on sensation. Together with memory, 
it constitutes the whole intellectual nature of brutes. In man 
it furnishes the first notices in order to the operation of his 
intellect. By the operation of the intellect on these notices 
the first simple ideas are formed, from which the mind proceeds 
to its complex and general notions. 

In considering the nature of the intellect, Aristotle introduces 
an important distinction between the mere capacity or faculty of 
knowledge, and the actual knowledge possessed by the mind ; or 
between the intellect and the principles of the intellect. He 
employs the well-known illustration of " a writing tablet in which 
nothing is actually written," to distinguish the thinking faculty 
in itself from the thoughts with which it is furnished. But he 
does not suppose, as this illustration might suggest, that ideas 
are objects distinct from the mind itself. Where the object of 
thought is itself immaterial, as when the mind is reflecting on 
itself, there, he observes, the thinking power and the object of 

1 He considers natural talent as con- 2 Ibid. iii. c. 3 and 4 ; Metaph. iv. c. 

nected with the delicacy of this sense. 5. The term imagination must here be 
(BeAnim. ii. c. 9, p. 642.) understood in the most general sense. 



60 ARISTOTLE. 

thought are the same. 1 He conceives, however, that the mind 
is capable of existing without thinking, 2 and consequently does 
not resolve the whole understanding of man into consciousness. 
Hence, according to him, whilst the passive intellect, or the mind, 
as it consists of principles with which the senses have furnished 
it, perishes, the active intellect, the power itself by which we 
think, exists in its proper nature when separate, and is immortal 
and eternal. 3 

It may be perceived, from this view of Aristotle's Theory of 
Soul, or Life, how far he acknowledged the Immortality of man. 
So far as the nature of man is purely intellectual, he conceived 
it capable of existing separately from matter, and in some sense 
divine. But so far as it consists of affections, which he describes 
as "koyoi tvv\oi 9 principles in matter, he regarded it as mortal and 
necessarily perishable with the body. He pronounces nothing on 
the nature of that immortality which he thus attributes to the 
intellect, speaking of it in a rhetorical manner rather than with 
the precision of philosophy. At any rate, as only asserting an 
immortality of such an abstract and undefined nature, he seems 
not unjustly to have been represented as opposed to Plato on the 
doctrine of the Immortality of the soul. 4 

As Aristotle included under Physics animate as well as in- 
animate nature, he has carried the historical part of his Natural 
philosophy into both these departments. His History of Ani- 
mals has been already mentioned. It is the precious relic of an 
extensive work, for which the materials were furnished to him by 
the conquests and the magnificence of Alexander. This fact alone 
excites an interest in favour of the work. And this interest is 
fully sustained by the variety of curious information contained 
in it respecting the structure and the habits of animals, indicating 
a power of the most minute observation. 5 He is said also to 

1 De Anim. iii. c. 5, It) piv ykg ruv i Origen c. Cels. ii. p. 67, ed. Spenc. 

civiu vXris to uvro itrn ro voouv ku.) to 5 It was the authority followed by 

voovpivov, p. 653. Pliny in his Natural History. Pliny, 

viii. 16, says in allusion to it, " vir, quem 

3 Ibid, rod Tt pb kn voth to a'lnov in iis magna secuturus ex parte prsefan- 
TitrKirriov, p. 653. 3 Ibid. iii. 6. dum reor." 



THEORETIC PHILOSOPHY. 61 

have written a work on Comparative Anatomy. There are extant 
among his works further illustrations of the animal economy, in 
treatises on the motion, the walking, the parts, and the generation 
of animals. In inanimate nature he has explored the causes of 
meteors, comets, earthquakes, of the rainbow, and other pheno- 
mena of the atmosphere, in a work on Meteorology. He has also 
separately discussed the nature of Colours, and of the objects of 
Hearing. 

To this catalogue must be added two works which do not 
strictly fall under either department of Nature, The Problems, 
containing queries chiefly on subjects belonging to Natural 
Philosophy, with brief answers, — a curious work, illustrative of 
his vast reach of observation, and his extraordinary sagacity in 
searching out the reasons of things ; and a tract against the doc- 
trines of Xenophanes, Zeno the Eleatic, 1 and Gorgias. 2 

In Mathematics he has left very little. The only treatises 
extant under this head are, The Mechanical Questions, and a book 
On Indivisible Lines ; both very inconsiderable works. But he 
had been trained in the school of Plato, whose threshold was not 
to be passed by the uninitiated in geometry ; and had attained 
a perfect skill in the method of mathematical investigation then 
known. We do not want, indeed, more proof of this than is to 
be gathered from passages in his Physics, in which we find him 
sometimes establishing conclusions by steps of mathematical de- 
monstration. 

1 So called in contradistinction to Narrations, and perhaps the Fragment 
Zeno the Cittian, founder of the Stoics, on the Winds ; the internal evidence of 
from Velia in Italy, his birthplace. these tracts being against their imputed 

2 The treatise on plants edited with authorship. It is probable that the 
his works is acknowledged by critics works of Theophrastus were mixed with 
not to be the work of Aristotle, but of those of Aristotle, from the fact of 
Theophrastu3. The treatise Be Mundo Theophrastus having had some volumes 
may also be regarded as now decidedly of Aristotle's bequeathed to him, and 
rejected from the number of his works, having used them in the composition of 
as also the Collection of Wonderful his own. 



62 ARISTOTLE. 

EFFICIENT PHILOSOPHY. 

Dialectic, or Logic. 

Aristotle, as was before remarked, was the first to separate 
the proper science of Dialectic or Logic from that confusion with 
Physics and Metaphysics in which it had been entangled and 
perverted. In doing this he laid the foundation of a sound and 
practical Logic. There was a basis of truth, he saw, in the doc- 
trine of Plato, which referred our knowledge of all sensible 
objects to certain abstract universal ideas, the objects of pure 
intellect. But he saw also that Plato had entirely overthrown 
the right application of the doctrine, by imputing to these 
universals a positive and distinct being. Instead of treating them 
simply as principles of classification and grounds of knowledge, 
Plato's creative genius built the world out of them, resolving all 
other existences into these as the primary essences and causes of 
all things. Having stated, then, the proper nature of these uni- 
versals to be that of conceptions of the mind, by which it repre- 
sents to itself things, not in that variable character in which they 
appear, but as they really are, Aristotle further considers them, in 
the treatises of the Organon, as they are employed dialectically, 
or are subservient to discussion and the communication of know- 
ledge between man and man. There was indeed another view of 
the application of abstract principles, and prior to that of their 
employment in discourse, remaining to be considered. This was 
their use in enabling the mind to connect the phenomena of 
Nature, or as they are the causes of a proper scientific knowledge. 
But the state of philosophy in his time did not lead him to such 
an inquiry. It was reserved for an age of more diffused civiliza- 
tion, and the adventurous spirit of Bacon, to display the prin- 
ciples of that analysis by which the mind arrives at sound gene- 
ral principles, and obtains a real science of Nature. The practice 
of colloquial discussion on questions of philosophy, recommended 
as it was by the instructiveness and interest of the conversations 
of Socrates, attracted the attention of Greek philosophers to the 



EFFICIENT PHILOSOPHY. 63 

mode of producing conviction by tracing out the connections and 
consequences of given statements. Aristotle accordingly, was 
diverted from the study of the method of Investigation, to explore 
the application of general principles to the business of Argument. 
In pursuing this inquiry, he has laid down the principles of a 
logical science, applicable to the inferences of the reasoner from 
probabilities, as well as the most rigid demonstrations of the 
mathematician. 1 

Dialectic, in its original sense (for the term Logic is only of 
modern use), is the method of deducing the probabilities on either 
side of a question, which is so framed as to involve one of two 
contradictory propositions in the answer, according as the affirma- 
tive or negative of it is taken. 2 The discussions to which the term 
Dialectic refers being carried on by a series of questions and 
answers, the design of the art was to furnish the means of sus- 
taining these intellectual exercises, by supplying not only prin- 
ciples of correct reasoning, or rules of logic properly so called, 
but various modes of proof and helps to the invention of argu- 
ments. 3 To have a ready command of propositions on any given 
point, and the objections against it, so as to be completely armed 
for debate, was the perfect accomplishment of the dialectician. 
This most obvious application of the science produced unfortu- 
nately, in the haste to supply arms for the disputant, instead of 
a philosophy of Eeasoning, a misnamed science, conversant 
chiefly about the intricacies of verbal quibbling. Zeno the 
Eleatic, Euclid of Megara, and Antisthenes, took the lead in 
framing systems according to this view. 'Not do the Dialogues 
of Plato, though rich in examples of reasoning, suggest any more 
just and exact method. Hence the Logic which prevailed at 
the time of Aristotle, and which, from the partial acquaintance 
with his writings, continued, even after his improvements in this 
branch of philosophy, to be the system of the Greek schools, was 
a mere collection of subtile points of argument, without any 
attempt to analyze the process itself of argument. His Dialectic 

1 Anal. Prior, i. c. 1 and 30. Anal. Post. i. c. 11. 2 Top. viii. cap. 2. 

3 Top. viii. cap. 5 et nit. ; Cicero De Fin. ii. cap. 6, and Top. ad Treb. cap. 2. 



64 ARISTOTLE. 

is the reformation of that irregular and perplexed system. 
"Whilst he adopts and explains the general notion of the science, 
as a method of defending or impugning an opinion, he takes a 
larger, more philosophical view of the subject ; investigating the 
grounds, both in the nature of language and in the connections 
of thought, on which all argument must rest. Hence his just 
boast, that "with regard to the dialectical art, there was not 
something done and something remaining to be done, — there was 
absolutely nothing done ; for those who professed the art of dis- 
putation resembled the rhetoricians of Gorgias's school : for as 
these composed orations, so the other framed arguments which 
might suit, as they imagined, most occasions. These their scho- 
lars soon learned. But they were in this manner only furnished 
with the materials produced by the art, — the art itself they did 
not learn." He goes on in the same passage to observe, that 
" upon Ehetoric much had been written of old ; but on syllogiz- 
ing or reasoning, absolutely nothing ; the whole of what he had 
composed on that subject was from himself ; " — that he had " de- 
rived no benefit from former labours : " expressing his hope, 
accordingly, that what he had " left undone would be forgiven, 
and that what had been discovered would meet with a favour- 
able acceptance." 1 

It is a singular fact in the history of science, that his labours 
in this arduous work should have suffered an unjust depreciation 
in modern times, by being estimated in contrast with the analysis 
of Bacon. According to his own challenge, and as the reason of 
the case suggests, they admit only of comparison with the efforts of 
his predecessors, and of the Stoics, who, though following him, 
wrought upon the ancient model of the science, and elaborated 
that to its perfection. If we compare the method of Aristotle with 
what is known of the wrangling discipline of the Stoics, we shall 
then judge with more fairness of the philosophical character of his 
labours. His disciples were content to be ignorant of such a 
method as the Stoics taught, 2 though, from its untoward preval- 

1 Soph. Elench. ii. last chapter. tetics as deficient in acntencss, " on 

a Cicero introduces Cato in the cha- account of their ignorance of dialectic." 
racter of a Stoic, speaking of the Peripa- {De Fin. iii. cnp. 12.) 



EFFICIENT PHILOSOPHY. 65 

ence down to the time at least of Cicero, it has probably been 
confounded with that of Aristotle, and thus reflected its disre- 
pute on his more scientific system. With the method, however, 
of Bacon, the Logic of Aristotle has no natural rivalry. In the 
period of literature preceding Bacon, it happened that ingenious 
men, with a natural devotedness to the studies by which 
their minds had been moulded, sought to resolve the mysteries 
of science by a profound Aristotelic philosophy. Thus were 
principles of Physics and Metaphysics mixed up with the 
theory of Argumentation ; as, on the other hand, principles 
belonging to Argumentation had been previously applied to the 
analysis of Nature. The writings of Aristotle were regarded as a 
kind of Scriptural philosophy, beyond which there was no appeal 
in controversies of science. 1 And when an authority of this kind 
is once established, it is easy to see that a mere verbal philosophy 
will soon follow. Expounding and commenting on the text 
of the master supersedes the questioning of Nature ; just as 
a mere textual theology supersedes an enlarged study of the 
facts, and truths, and scheme of Divine Eevelation. But 
this perversion is not to be regarded as the tendency of Aris- 
totle's philosophy. Practically, indeed, he does not keep clear 
of the seductions of realism. But in him realism is only a 
practical infirmity. Theoretically, he was perfectly aware, no 
less than Bacon, that "the subtilty of Nature far surpasses 
the subtilty of sense and intellect;" 2 and that, accordingly, to 

1 Where a disputant quoted a passage vox, quam inter disputanduru, me audi 

from this philosopher, he who main- ente, juvenis ille, in scholis nostris, non 

tained the Thesis durst not say Tran- sine magno astantium applausu, publice 

seat, but had either to deny the passage edidit ; ' prius vitam quam Aristotelem 

or explain it in his own way. (Bayle, deseramf tantum tamen eiinLogicis tri- 

Dict., art. Aristot.) He refers, in evi- buendum, et sentio, et ingenue profiteor, 

denceoftbis, to the Courses of Philosophy, ut ab illius tramite in his discedere, et 

printed in the Sixteenth Century. Crack- indocti hominis, et valde levis ingenii, 

anthorp, in a volume of Logic (2d ed. nxpripiov, judicem." Logicae Libri Quin- 

1641), declares that he purposes follow- que; Auctore, R. Crackanthorpo, SS. 

ing Aristotle to the utmost ; yet he can- Theol. D. Coll. Reg. Oxon. Soc. The 

not go as far as Brerewood in his admira- like devotedness to Aristotle is evi- 

tion of the philosopher; " quamvis autem denced throughout the ancient Oxford 

non mihi placeat ilia viri doctissimi, mi- Statutes, 

hique a puero dilectissimi, Brerewooddi 2 Bacon, Nov. Org. i. aph. 10. 



66 ARISTOTLE. 

ascertain what things are, we must know them otherwise than 
dialectically. He would have dialectical skill employed for 
the purpose of stating and examining the questions and diffi- 
culties belonging to a subject — not to supersede an acquaintance 
with phenomena. 1 He observes, that when, in inquiries 
concerning what a tiling is, men are ignorant of the circum- 
stances connected with it, they pronounce only logically and 
emptily ; 2 thus pointing out the futility of applying an 
instrument of discussion to the real business of philosophical 
investigation. So far, then, as dialectical art, by sifting a 
question thoroughly, clearing up apparent inconsistencies, and 
pointing out where the truth lies, may be regarded as an organ 
of philosophy, so far Aristotle authorizes the inquirer to employ 
it. It may serve as a precursor and companion of investigation, 
but not as the substitute. And thus he describes it as a method 
of " trying," nupatnxr} ; whereas Philosophy is a method of 
"knowledge," yvtopiariKr,? It is quite opposite to his idea of 
dialectical art to suppose it capable of furnishing the principles 
of the several sciences. These, he expressly says, belong to the 
sciences themselves, by which they must be supplied to the 
dialectician according to the niatter in hand. 4 To the philoso- 
phical disputant they are the data with which he sets out ; or 
rather, so far as he is concerned with them, the hypotheses, 
which he proceeds to discuss in their various points of view, 
tracing their connection with, or opposition to, other principles. 
Aristotle, therefore, evidently did not intend that the philosopher, 
as such, should rest in mere logical speculation. And though 
he has not provided in his writings an instrument of Investiga- 

1 He sometimes expressly adverts to the 4 Anal. Pr., i. cap. 30 ; Anal. Post. i. 
difference between conclusions drawn Ix cap. 1, 3, 9. 

ruv fccivo/xtvuv and ix ruv koycov, as De 5 Bacon rightly describes the kind of 
Gen, et Cor. ii. cap. 10 ; Eudem. i. discovery, which belongs to Logic, in 
cap. 6. He also distinguishes between saying, " Inventio enim dialectics non 
"koytKui and avocXuTiKui in the mode est principiorumetaxiomatumpraecipuo- 
of obtaining a proof. Analyt. Post. i. rum, ex quibus artes constant, sed eorum 
22. tantum, qureillis consentanea vidcntur." 

2 De Anim. i. cap. 1, p. 617, Du Val. {Nov. Org. i. p. 82.) Aristotle says the 
8 Metaph. iv. cap. 2. same thing. 



EFFICIENT PHILOSOPHY. 67 

tion, giving only indirect hints of such a method, he supposes 
it resorted to in practice by the philosopher. His Logic, 
accordingly, instead of being put in contrast with the Novum 
Organum, is to be regarded as an auxiliary system, introductory 
to the latter, and tending to enforce its use. 

The error of the Schoolmen in applying logical principles 
to the philosophy of Nature arose from their misconception 
of the nature of philosophical truth. They do not seem to have 
been aware that philosophical principles are but expedients 
which the mind adopts for connecting and arranging the various 
objects of Nature. Otherwise, they would have seen that a 
science conversant about the connections of our notions 
expressed in language, could not suffice for the investigation, 
properly so called, of other sciences. When the facts of this 
science were reduced to certain principles, the whole object of 
the science was accomplished. The result would be a scientific 
use of thought and language for the purposes of debate and 
speculation. To carry this philosophy into other matters, 
was an incongruity like that of combining principles of mathe- 
matics and ethics. 1 There was at the same time a ground 
for their error, in the universality of language, as the medium 
by which the truths of every science are expressed ; and its 
comprehensiveness and extent, as it has the power of signifying 
by single terms an immense variety of objects. These imposing- 
attributes of language gave at least a semblance of philosophiz- 
ing to their a priori speculations. But could they have studied 
the writings of their master in a freer spirit, their acute minds 
would have seen the real use to which the universality and 
comprehensiveness of language might be applied, without 
trespassing on the legitimate province of Investigation. 

A slight consideration of the nature of Language may suffice 
to shew the proper business of the dialectician. Language 
is the record of the observations of mankind on the course 

1 Aristippus complained of mathe- As unreasonable has been the complaint 
matical science, that it gave no account of the " barrenness of invention" of the 
of goods and evils. (Metaph. iii. c. 2.) ancient Logic. 



68 ARISTOTLE. 

of Nature. It is, as it were, a popular philosophy. Whatever 
may be its origin — whether words be merely conventional 
signs, as Aristotle teaches, 1 or have a foundation in the nature 
of the things denoted by them — still, their application to 
observed objects and facts in Nature, is the result of the 
operation of the human mind ; and words, in this use of them, 
are the creations of the intellect. The intellect takes up 
and applies the existing signs furnished by language, however 
derived, to mark and preserve for its future direction the 
dictates of its past experience. Thus, the application of 
the term "burning" to the observed effect of fire on a com- 
bustible body, is an act of the mind recording its experience 
of that effect. Having recorded its experience by this term, 
it thenceforth uses the term as a substitute for the actual 
experience. Proceeding on that fundamental law of human 
belief and action, that all things will continue in their observed 
course, it trusts to the word thus obtained as a guide to future 
conduct. It is sufficient to say that anything " burns/' to give 
us a representation of the effect of fire, and direct us in our 
actions with regard to that thing. Accordingly, by the use of 
terms, observations, in themselves individual facts, are general- 
ized. The term, originally the record of a single experience, 
serving practically in the stead of a repeated experience, comes 
to stand for a number of individuals. From its practical 
application to a multitude of similar events, it obtains a specu- 
lative multiplication as the general expression of many par- 
ticulars, or, in short, becomes a class-term. 

It is thus that language may be regarded as a popular 
philosophy of Nature. Each term, denoting some observed 
object or event, is a general principle connecting the several 
objects or events to which it admits of being equally applied. 
"Whilst it practically enables us to judge and act in a number of 
individual cases, it also speculatively presents the means of an- 
ticipating a number of particulars, as notions implied in it ; or, in 
other words, is a theory of the particulars which it signifies. 

1 De Interpret, c. 2. 



EFFICIENT PHILOSOPHY. 69 

But when we have once obtained a variety of terms, thus 
representing in each of them a multitude of particulars, we can 
further generalize our observations by reflection on the notions 
themselves, and recording our observations on these, in like 
manner as on the real objects and events of Nature. We then 
notice whether the notions implied by one term are distinct from, 
or are included in, the notions implied by another, and accord- 
ingly we regard the terms respectively signifying them, as classes, 
totally distinct, on the one hand, or on the other, as more or less 
extensive, or more or less comprehensive. We observe, for 
instance, whether the terms " man/' " animal," " vegetable," — all 
being records of our observations on Nature, — give us informa- 
tion of the same particulars, or of others entirely different ; and 
we find that " man" and " animal " are but different views of the 
same individual, as for instance of Socrates; whilst the term 
" vegetable " is no expression of any observation whatever on the 
same individual. We find, again, that "animal" represents to 
us more individual objects than " man," and that " man," whilst 
excluding many objects signified by " animal," represents, in its 
comprehensiveness, a vast variety of objects of thought besides 
that of "animal;" and so we regard these terms speculatively as 
classes, relatively including more or less in them, and both, 
further, as classes entirely distinct from the class "vegetable," 
because none of the observations referred to in either of the 
former are the same with those referred to in the latter. 

These principles of language are the data on which the 
logical system of Aristotle is constructed. It is evident, from 
the mere statement of them, that there is such a thing as a 
scientific application of language, and the notions which it 
expresses, to the purpose of argumentative instruction. It is 
thus clearly seen to act as an instrument of knowledge by its 
very nature, independently of any art in the use of it ; and it is 
for the philosopher, therefore, to inquire how it acts in produc- 
ing this effect, 

Now, in order to such a science, the first step appears to be 
to reduce our various observations on existing things into some 



70 ARISTOTLE. 

definite classes. We thus bring them out of that perplexing 
infinity which defies all grasp of the intellect, and obtain a few 
general notions under which the whole intellectual world may 
be surveyed. These classes will represent to us the different 
forms or modifications of Being, so far as Being is capable of 
expression in language. The next step is to examine the 
principle of Classification in itself, and notice the varieties of 
form which it takes, as the observations that are made on any 
individual give us more or less general, more or less invari- 
able and scientific views of the individual. The first step leads 
us to the Categories or Predicaments, general designations under 
which all the various abstractions of the mind are conveniently 
arranged for the purpose of the logician. These constitute, as it 
w r ere, the fixed landmarks by which he may know the limits of 
each notion with which he has to do in any discussion. They 
are the great sections in the geography of the intellectual world, 
which it is his office to explore and describe. The next step 
leads us to the Heads of Predicables, or various modes of class- 
ing the same object. Here we enter on that part of the science 
which is purely logical. In the arrangements called the 
" Categories," the inquiry is partly metaphysical, partly logical, 
but more metaphysical than logical. We are there philosophiz- 
ing on the notions of the mind in connection with language. 
But here we examine the principle of classification evidenced 
in language, in itself, and endeavour to obtain exact views of 
all the varieties of form under which it appears : we are 
taking accordingly a more interior view of the nature and 
working of language itself, as it is a method of science ; as it 
conveys information of what is, or is not, in the wide world of 
Human Thought : and this is properly the business of Logic, as it 
is a peculiar branch of metaphysical science. 

Thus far the science of Dialectic was sketched out before the 
time of Aristotle. The Pythagorean philosopher, Archytas of 
Tarentum, has the merit of having instituted those arrangements 
of the objects of the intellect, which Aristotle adopted under the 
title of The Categories. The authority, however, of Simplicius 



EFFICIENT PHILOSOPHY. 71 

the commentator in the sixth century, on which such a work is 
ascribed to Archytas, is extremely questionable. The truth 
appears to be, that the arrangement itself was of ancient stand- 
ing in Greek philosophy, but was unknown as to its origin. It 
may, however, have been derived through the Pythagoreans, 
whose mathematical studies gave a colour to all their specula- 
tions ; as the tenfold division corresponding with the decimal 
notation of Arithmetic would indicate. "Whilst the classification 
then was adopted by Aristotle, the discussion of it is evidently 
throughout his own, strikingly displaying that acuteness of 
discrimination which is a great characteristic of his mind. 

The number of the Categories may be deduced from the 
following considerations. We may contemplate an object 
either as to what it is, or what it has, — as to its nature, or. 
as to its attributes. 1. If we contemplate it as to its being 
or nature, it may be regarded, 1st, Either as a whole complex 
independent being in itself; or 2c%, Partially, under some 
abstract peculiar point of view, which still represents its 
nature, but only indistinctly and inadequately. Under both 
these aspects it is a being or substance that we contemplate. 
Being then evidently is of two kinds — Primary and Secondary. 
Individuals and units, existing alone, and independently, are 
Primary beings ; those natures which are abstracted from them, 
and which by generalization become universals, not existing 
independently of the individuals in which they are observed, 
are Secondary beings. Being or Substance, then, under this 
twofold division constitutes the 1st Category. The remaining 
nine, which are the following : — 2. Quantity ; 3. Quality ; 
4. Eelation ; 5. Place ; 6. Time ; 7. Situation ; 8. Habitude or 
Condition ; 9. Action ; 10. Passion or Suffering, — are all so 
many different affections or attributes of Being. Each head 
then is separately considered by Aristotle, and its limitation 
exactly drawn. The Treatise being further introductory to the 
whole method of disputation, a method, not simply of reasoning, 
but of producing conviction on any subject — he prefaces it with 
pointing out in what sense alone one notion, or rather the term 



72 ARISTOTLE. 

which represents it, can be logically predicated or said of another : 
and at the end, in that portion of the work which has been called 
the Post-predicaments, subjoins explanations of the notions " oppo- 
site," " contrary," " prior," " co-existent," iC motion," " having ; " as 
the terms denoting them were understood in the Greek language. 

There is no distinct treatise of Aristotle on the Heads of 
Predicables. This classification, like that of the Categories, is, 
doubtless, of ancient date in the schools of Greece. He assumes 
it as familiarly known ; and where accordingly he refers to it 
with explicitness, it is chiefly to shew its application to the 
purpose of disputation, as in the first book of his Topics. Here 
we have nothing to do with individuals as such. 

The term Class is, evidently, one purely notional, not formed 
from the contemplation of objects existing in themselves, inde- 
pendently and unconnectedly, but as already grouped together 
by the mind ; which, pursuing the process by which it originally 
combined them into classes, seeks further to obtain a general 
view of these classes, by grouping them also, and assigning to 
them their respective designations. Such are these five classes, 
— 1. Genus ; 2. Differentia ; 3. Species ; 4. Property ; 5. Acci- 
dent : technically called the Heads of Predicables, and also 
words of Second Intention, for this reason, that they do not 
express the primary affections or intentions of the mind in its 
contemplation of things, but its secondary affections or inten- 
tions, on its reflex contemplation of the primary ones ; all having 
relation to some one given object of thought, differing only in 
regard to the fulness and distinctness of view in which they 
represent that object to the mind. A Predicable falls under the 
head of Genus, when it brings to our view some object of thought 
as existing, by identifying it with some other object already known 
to us by that name, which is then regarded as the general desig- 
nation of the nature or being of the object which it is sought to 
make known. This is shewn by the fact, that when we wish to 
give a person some conception of a thing of which he may have 
heard the name, but has yet to learn what it is, we naturally tell 
him what it is like, by referring it to something else with which he 



EFFICIENT PHILOSOPHY. 73 

is already acquainted, or, in other words, saying what sort of 
thing it is. And this other object of thought becomes to him 
thus a genus, or class, under which he arranges it. Suppose, for 
example, we had to give a person, ignorant of the thing, some 
notion of a crusade, we should suggest to him the idea of a war ; 
and if that were insufficient to bring the object before his mind, 
we should proceed to state it to be a war for a religious purpose ; 
either of which designations would, in its measure, give him an 
information of the nature of the thing. Such, however, would be 
but vague and indistinct informations. Were a person to rest in 
them, he would confound the object sought with others to which 
it bore the general resemblance thus far intimated. It becomes 
necessary, therefore, to point out further and closer resemblances 
of the object, by suggesting other terms, which, whilst importing 
the same general resemblance as the first, are exclusive of some of 
the objects denoted by the first, and so tend to bring the object 
within a smaller range of view, and more distinctly therefore 
before the mind. The search for these leads us to the class of 
Predicables called Differentia, expressing under that one term, 
the several subordinate genera in the scale, by which the descent 
is made from the higher ground of the first abstract notion with 
which the information about the object commenced, to the level 
on which we ultimately view it. The process is like that of the 
painter working on his picture, in order to place the chief object 
of his study in the most prominent point of view. He first pre- 
sents it grouped with others around it, from which it is scarcely 
distinguishable. He throws them into shadow as he proceeds, 
and concentrates his lights more and more upon it, and touches 
its outline more strongly, until at length it stands forth in bold 
relief on his canvas, borrowing indeed much of its character and 
interest from the surrounding landscape, but itself the chief 
object of attention and interest in the finished picture. 

The result of the whole process constitutes the third class 
of Predicables, termed by the Latin logicians, more after Plato 
than after Aristotle, the Species, by Aristotle himself, "Ogog, or 
6g/o/*dg, the Definition or Determination, inasmuch as it denotes 



74 ARISTOTLE. 

the process of subdivision terminated at that stage, and the 
object accordingly then distinctly marked out, characterized, and 
denned in words. Hence, the Species stands as the lowest clas- 
sification of the object defined, and is conceived to consist only 
of individuals, or units admitting no further division, inasmuch 
as they are represented in their whole being by the terms ex- 
pressing their species. 

The two remaining classes of Predicables, termed by Aristotle 
"io/ov and 2v/jbQsQ?jKbg, and by modern usage, after the Latin logi- 
cians, Property and Accident, do not, like the first three, charac- 
terize an object of thought, as it exists — as it occupies a place in 
the intellectual world amidst other objects of contemplation — 
but as it manifests certain phenomena in itself, or is affected by 
certain conditions. Whatever may be the primary character of 
the object of thought as referred to its place in the Categories, 
not only when it may be itself a Being or Substance, but also 
when, as in Morals, it may be a Quality, or, in Mathematics, a 
Quantity, in assigning its Genus, Differentia, and Species or 
Definition, we assume its Being ; we then consider it as it exists, 
though it is nothing more than a notional existence with which 
the mind invests it. 

This five-fold distribution of Predicables into the several 
heads of 1. Genus, 2. Differentia, 3. Species, or Definition, 4. 
Property, 5. Accident, belongs properly to Logic in the wider, 
looser sense, in which it is viewed as the art of disputation, 
rather than as a science of the connexions of Thought evidenced 
in statements of facts and reasonings by the aid of Language. 
The earliest lessons in philosophy appear to have been carried 
on in question and answer ; the teacher taking the office of 
questionist ; and the discussion being so directed as to call forth 
the chief points of doubt and interest on the subject proposed. 1 

1 Aiukiyzo-dxi, sometimes explained as tations carried on by an opponent and 
equivalent to t<£ Xoyoj x,$ ff 0°"i Sclieib- respondent 'on a given question, main- 
leri Logica, p. 45. Some, he observes, tainedin the Schools of the Middle Ages, 
from their ignorance of Greek, derive and still subsisting as an exercise in 
the word from Ivo and Xsg/j, sermo vel our own Universities, is only a modi- 
ratio duorum, hoc est opponentis et fication of the original notion of Dia- 
respondentis. The practice of Dispu- lectic. 



EFFICIENT PHILOSOPHY. 75 

The original logic of the Greek schools took its complexion from 
the requirements for this purpose, and in that character was 
perpetuated by the Latin Churchmen and Logicians of the Middle 
Ages. It was necessary that the disputant should be furnished 
with an instrument of oral discussion, both in order to put his 
questions in due form, so as to draw forth the desired answers, 
and also to enable him, in performing the part of the answerer, to 
see to what point a questioner might be leading him, and to main- 
tain any view of the subject which he had taken up, with consis- 
tency. There would be a demand, therefore, for instruction in the 
nature and use of words as they served to characterize and state 
the natures of things. Exact distinctions must be given of the 
notions implied in the terms of any question proposed for dis- 
cussion ; and the world of thought must therefore be surveyed 
and mapped out. The disputant must be prepared, by a study 
of the Categories, to say whether a given object belonged to the 
category of Substance or Quality, and so forth. He must also 
have gone beyond this preliminary study of words in their 
primary relation to things as their immediate objects of thought, 
and explored them also in their secondary relation, as classes of 
purely notional objects, such as the Heads of Predicables are, so 
as to be able to say in respect to any object, what its genus was, 
what its species or definition, what its properties, what its acci- 
dents. These matters of inquiry, then, whilst they are valuable 
and interesting to logical students of all times, would be of espe- 
cial practical importance in the Ancient Schools ; that so, the 
disputant might enter the lists fully equipped in his proper 
intellectual armoury, provided with weapons of attack and de- 
fence, ready to meet all challengers in the field. Accordingly, 
in the Treatise which follows the Categories in the arrangement 
of the several portions of the logical works by the commentators 
of the Middle Ages — that " On Interpretation? 1 — in which Pro- 
positions come to be considered, it is shewn, what propositions 
having the same terms are opposed, or not, to each other, and 

1 'Egpywict is not adequately rendered by Interpretation. It means the Expres- 
sion of Thought by Language. 



76 ARISTOTLE. 

what may or may not be true together. Still more does the same 
appear in a subsequent Treatise, entitled the Topics, in which the 
author is engaged throughout in suggesting to the disputant 
principles for maintaining, or impugning, the alternatives on any 
given question. In that Treatise the reference is immediate to 
Dialectic, as the method by which one might reason about any 
proposed problem from probabilities, and in sustaining an argu- 
ment might avoid saying anything contrary to the purpose. 
And he describes that method, not only as useful for exercise in 
conversational discussions, but also as availing, in a measure, for 
the sciences belonging to philosophy ; because, when we are able 
to raise objections on both sides, we shall more easily discover in 
everything both the truth and the falsehood ; and further, be- 
cause the first principles of any science are incapable of demon- 
stration, and a way may be opened to the reception of them by 
adducing probable arguments concerning them. 1 Such, indeed, 
is the practical design of both Treatises of the Analytics, whilst 
in that entitled the Prior Analytics, the theory of the Syllogism 
is accurately and fully developed ; and more obviously still of 
the Treatise " On Sophistic Refutations " or Fallacies. 

But though the several Treatises of the Organon have this 
direct practical design, and are therefore dialectical rather than 
logical, yet it is evident, that a view of Logic as an art of Dispu- 
tation did not satisfy the penetrating mind of Aristotle. He 
saw that there was a real science of the connexions of Thought, 
as expressed in Language, involved in the method of disputation, 
which, in pursuance of the track marked out by his predecessors, 
and for the introduction of a better system, he had been led to 
search out and unfold. And though we may have no occasion 
to apply his observations to the same purpose, and their essential 
instruction to us is in the theory of Argumentation, they are 
not without their use to us, even according to their original 
design, as aids in the study of the truths of a science, and in 
order to the methodical pursuit of any matter of literary 
inquiry. 

1 Topica, i. c. 1, 2. 



EFFICIENT PHILOSOPHY, 77 

In the Categories, then, we have the Metaphysical Being of 
things, so far as it is denoted by Language, drawn out into its 
various modes, and distinctly characterized. They are not 
arrangements of things existing in Nature or classification of 
objects. They are nothing more than a classification of objects 
as represented by words to the mind. As no one supposes that 
the parts of speech enumerated by the grammarian are a theory 
of the universe, whilst they give all the general heads under 
which the truths of the Universe fall when stated in sentences ; 
so neither should it be supposed that the Categories are designed 
to be a system of the Universe. If they be taken apart from their 
place in a science of Logic, they may be objected to by some as 
incomplete, by others as prolix ; and attempts, accordingly, have 
been made both to extend and to reduce their number. But 
the question with regard to them is, whether in their present 
form they answer the purpose of the logician ; whether they 
suffice to reduce the objects of thought, innumerable in them- 
selves, within the horizon of its survey, and enable us to 
deal with them and reason about them with clearness and 
accuracy. 

In the Heads of Predicables, we have the Secondary or Logi- 
cal Being, the various modes of existence created by Language 
through its power of representing multitudes under single terms 
or expressions. For there is no limit to that power. It is not 
with these as the case is with the Categories. They must have 
a reference to existing things, since they are classes of our notions 
about existing things ; and they are limited therefore in number, 
But we may create, and give a logical existence, to innumerable, 
even fictitious and imaginary thoughts ; as when, for instance, it 
may be said of anything that it is a chimera, that term may con- 
stitute either the subject, or the predicate, of a proposition, to 
be employed in reasoning, no less than if it expressed a reality. 
All that is meant, in fact, when in a proposition any object is 
said to be this or that — as when it is said, "that Socrates is 
wise," — it means logically, the existence in our conception of 
Socrates, of something belonging to that class of notional beings 



78 ARISTOTLE. 

which is denoted by the term " wise," or that, on the other hand, 
"wise" is a quality comprehended in our conception of the indi- 
vidual Socrates. 

The Treatise on Interpretation brings us more immediately 
into the presence of logical facts, by exhibiting the combination 
of words in propositions ; whereas, hitherto, we have considered 
them rather as distinct expressions of thought in themselves 
alone. We now proceed to examine them in their bearings on 
each other when connected in an enunciation. 

Here it becomes important to us accurately to distinguish 
between the respective functions of Grammar and Logic, inas- 
much as both these sciences are conversant about words in their 
application to the communication of knowledge. 

The rise of a science of Grammar has been admirably sketched 
by Adam Smith, in his observations on the Origin of Language. 
He points out how the ancient languages are more simple, 
and one in the expression, than the modern. What is one 
word, for instance, "venit" in the Latin, becomes in the 
English, " he is coming f the modern, as he shews, dropping the 
various inflections, and becoming, at once, more simple in its 
elements, and more complex in structure, by the various com- 
bination of fewer elementary sounds. In its progress, accord- 
ingly, Language carries on the analytical process, with which it 
set out, when single words were broken up into a sentence con- 
sisting of several words ; when the relations of thoughts which 
had been expressed by different terminations of words, had 
each their separate distinctive signs ; just as writing, from being 
at first in pictures and symbols, became at length alphabetical. 
What is gradually effected in regard to the study of Grammar, 
by the natural progress of Language, that, Logic takes up as 
already accomplished to its hands, in every information sub- 
mitted in words to its survey, or else reduces that information 
into a form which conveys it without any extrinsic addition — 
that is, as either an affirmative or negative proposition, declaring 
what the fact or truth, or thought, communicated, is. Now, if 
we desire to communicate anything in words to others, whether 



EFFICIENT PHILOSOPHY. 79 

it be matter of history or of our own observation, or an opinion, 
or a feeling, the communication, stripped of all its adjuncts of 
description or grammatical proprieties, or ornaments of style, 
will be found in all instances to be reducible to the form of 
the bare statement that this is, or is not, that. What was a 
whole, as perceived and apprehended by the mind of the per- 
son who desires to express it, becomes, in communicating it 
in words, divided into three several parts, constituting together 
an enunciation: 1. a subject; 2. a predicate; 3. the verb sub- 
stantive, — "is," on the one hand, if it be an affirmative; on 
the other, if it be a negative, " is not," — the same in all cases, 
uniting the subject and predicate, the two terms or extremes, 1 
in the one expression, as existing, or not existing, together. 
And this formula is the same for all instances ; whether the 
expression be of something real or unreal — a truth of history 
and experience — or a mere speculation and opinion — one relative 
to external nature or of our own consciousness — a principle, or 
an inference. For the inquiry of the logician is not into what 
is true or false, probable or improbable, in the statement before 
him, — which it belongs to the philosopher, and the observer, 
or the historian, or the man of judgment and information in 
the matter concerned, to determine, — but simply into what 
is affirmed or denied, in the enunciation, into which the alleged 
fact is now, as it were, translated. The logician, like the philo- 
sopher in general, has his peculiar class of facts presented to 
his survey, which he is to observe and study, and reduce to 
their general principles, as far as may be. And the facts in his 
case are, the instances in which one term is predicated of another, 
either affirmatively or negatively. He has to explain what the 
nature of that connexion is, and trace it out as a phenomenon to 
its cause and principle. In like manner, he proceeds also with 
those inferentially connected ; as where something is alleged as 
resulting from another, or propositions are stated as conclusions 
from others. These also he reduces to their simplest form of 

1 Such is the original meaning of " term," now popularly applied as synony- 
mous with "word " or "expression." 



80 ARISTOTLE. 

enunciations, in each of which there is presented for his con- 
sideration the relation of two terms, of which one is the subject, 
and the other the predicate of a proposition, connected by the 
substantive verb, "is," or "is not." 1 

Each of the terms, either the subject or predicate, may con- 
sist of several words, as must happen, when no single word 
adequately conveys the thought intended ; for then it must be 
expressed by description and circumlocution. But this makes no 
difference in the estimate of the subject or predicate as terms of 
a proposition. The logician simply looks to the thought ex- 
pressed as if it were denoted by a single word, and compares the 
subject and predicate of the proposition as universals so con- 
nected or disconnected. 

An erroneous view of the formation of logical propositions has 
been given in the popular Compendium, 2 according to which 
they are represented as the results of a synthetic process, instead 
of being, as here stated, the results of an analysis effected by 
Language. The mind, it has been said, sits, as it were, in 
judgment on two objects, and, on comparing them, pronounces 
that they agree or disagree, and so forms affirmative or negative 
propositions concerning them. This is to build the science on a 
metaphorical assumption. The only agreement or disagreement 
between two objects is their being found in some one fact, whether 
real or supposed. Affirmative propositions, accordingly, are not 
judgments, the results of a previous comparison, and afterwards 
put together in words, but analytical statements of what is 
observed in the concrete ; and likewise negative propositions on 
the other hand analytical statements of what, by the like obser- 
vation, has been found or supposed not to be the fact. 

It has been part of the same misconception of a proposition 
to regard the substantive verb as only the " copula " or tie of 

1 Hence it is said, that the noun and which are in fact nouns ; as is the case 
the verb are the only parts of speech with even the verb " is," when used in 
which belong to Logic, and of verbs, a proposition without any predicate ox- 
only the verb substantive signifying pressed; for it then stands for, "is exist- 
existence ; all other verbs resolving ing." 
themselves into this and their participles, 2 Aldrich's Logic. 



EFFICIENT PHILOSOPHY. 81 

connexion between the two objects supposed to be compared, 
like the Conjunction in Grammar uniting two words or two sen- 
tences, or disuniting them. In reality, the substantive verb is 
the most important word in the analysis, expressing, as it does, 
the existence or non-existence of some fact, real or supposed ; 
denoting the affirmation, or negation, without which there could 
be no proposition. 

The logician, then, has to explore how words can thus become 
the subjects and predicates of propositions about existence. That 
A is B, or that A is not B, — these are the fundamental general 
facts of his science, which he has in the first place to investigate, 
and then to apply the results in explaining the process of 
Argumentation. For Argumentation is but a series of connected 
propositions. 

The first thing which occurs to observation is the position of 
the two terms, one as the predicate of the other. This implies 
that the latter is a term of greater extent than the former, bear- 
ing the relation of a genus to a species ; and that the former, 
the subject, is a term of greater comprehension than the other, 
inasmuch as it may have resemblances to many other objects 
besides those intimated by the predicate, and each of which re- 
semblances may be the ground of as many different predicates. 
Each of the terms, then, of the proposition being universals, one 
in the sense of comprehension, and the other in that of extension, 
it becomes necessary to express further in the proposition whether 
the logical being denoted by the predicate extends, or not, over 
the whole conception of the subject ; or in other words, whether 
not only the predicate itself is universal, but the predication 
universal. For in all instances the predicate as well as the sub- 
ject are in themselves universals, no less if the proposition of which 
they are the terms, be particular, than if it be universal. If the 
fact or observation, accordingly, which the proposition is meant to 
express, be general, — or not restricted to particular instances, but 
unlimited in application, — the proposition which expresses it, must, 
in its logical form, correspond in its universality. If, for instance, 
the observation be that " Knowledge is Power ;" in order to avail 

G 



82 AKISTOTLE. 

ourselves of that proposition as a premiss in a logical argument, 
we must reduce it to a determinate form, since, as it stands in the 
general assertion, it may mean " all knowledge," or " some know- 
ledge." And if the universality is the chief thing respected in the 
observation, it must be stated so as to imply that the predicate 
"Power" extends over the whole subject "Knowledge." In 
such case, the abstract form of the proposition becomes all A is 
B. So, also, if the observation be universally negative, the state- 
ment becomes " No A is B." But if the universality of the fact 
or the observation be unascertained, or it be accompanied with 
exceptions, the form will be some A is B, as well as some A is 
not B, to indicate that the predicate applies only to the subject 
as partially connected ; that though the predicate be an universal 
itself, it is not predicated universally of the subject. 

Hence all Propositions on any matter whatever are reduced 
to four kinds : — 1. Universal Affirmative, in which one class or 
universal is affirmed of the whole of another ; 2. Universal 
Negative, in which two classes or universals are mutually ex- 
cluded from one another, because, if anything in the subject did 
belong to the universal denoted by the predicate, or any of the 
predicate to the universal denoted by the subject, the assertion 
that " No A is B " could not be made ; 3. Particular Affirmative, 
in which one class or universal is affirmed of some of the parti- 
culars included in the other; 4. Particular Negative, in which 
one class or universal partly excludes the other. These are the 
only varieties of form under which any two classes of objects can 
be combined in Affirmations or Negations. Every Proposition, 
accordingly, in order to be brought fully and strictly under the 
survey of Logic, must be referred to one or the other of these 
Forms, as the case may be. Hence we may proceed to examine 
these ultimate forms to which propositions are reducible, inde- 
pendently of the things themselves about which the propositions 
are ; and draw from them logical principles applicable to every 
particular case. Thus, the form of a Universal Affirmative, " All 
A is B," in which the letters A and B are put as the representa- 
tives of any objects whatever, is the proper datum, from which the 



EFFICIENT PHILOSOPHY. 83 

whole logical nature of any Universal Affirmative Proposition 
may be explored. So also with regard to the remaining abstract 
forms. 

Aristotle, accordingly, has thus examined the nature of Pro- 
positions, and pointed out their force as principles, both in them- 
selves and when connected in reasonings. 

He does not separately consider the nature of Propositions 
under the view of their admitting the reciprocation or conver- 
sion of their terms, though in the book on Interpretation he 
has discussed the various forms of Opposition. The discussion 
of the nature of Opposition would be more particularly required 
of him from the metaphysical disputes of the day ; some philo- 
sophers denying the absolute truth of any proposition, or the 
possibility of Contradiction. But the subject of Conversion is 
one of simple logical consideration, as to what inferences may 
be made from an interchange of position between the subject 
and predicate of a proposition ; and, on this account probably, 
he has not treated it apart from the exposition of the syllogism. 
For it is in the course of his examination into the construction 
of syllogisms that he practically points out its principles ; shew- 
ing, that Universal Affirmatives cannot be simply converted ; but 
that when the predicate takes the place of the subject in the 
proposition, the predication must be limited ; since, for the truth 
of the proposition " All A is B," it is enough that some B is A ; 
but, at the same time, that it would not be true, that all A is B, 
unless some B were A. In like manner, he shews that no Parti- 
cular Negative can be converted, because, when the subject of 
such a proposition becomes its predicate, it is then universally 
denied of the subject, but not the subject, of it ; that is, if 
some A is not B, it may be true also, that " some A. is B f and 
that would not be true, if some B were not A. 

In his Prior Analytics he passes on to the consideration of 
Syllogisms, or arguments logically viewed. Here it is that the 
logical theory is properly unfolded. Syllogisms are the perfect 
developments of the theory of language, as language consists of 
signs expressive of Being, — as it manifests of the general fact, that 



84 ARISTOTLE. 

a word denoting Being is the representative of a class of obser- 
vations on some subject to which they refer as to their founda- 
tion and support. This theory is first intimated in the ordinary 
use of single words. It is next more disclosed in the connec- 
tions of words, as terms, in propositions affirming or denying 
one term of another. It is lastly laid open in the Syllogism, in 
which the principle of classification is fully exemplified as the 
tie of connection between two terms affirmed or denied of each 
other. 

Since, then, the evidence of the connection subsisting between 
the two terms brought together in any affirmation or negation is 
the point in every argument ; it is evident that the reasoning on 
any subject whatever may be exhibited abstractedly from the par- 
ticular matter about which it is. Terms can only be connected as 
they are classes more or less extensive, relatively to each other; and 
this relative extent is evidenced at once, as before shewn, by the 
abstract forms of the propositions in which they are connected. 
Three abstract propositions, accordingly, in which the terms 
whose connection is explored, are, first (i.e., in the two premises), 
separately stated in their relation to some intermediate class or 
middle term, — and then in their relation to each other (i.e., in 
the conclusion), as it is the result of their premised relations to 
the intermediate class, — will enable us, without reference to any 
other consideration, to judge of the conclusiveness of the argu- 
ment. The Syllogism is nothing more than this abstract state- 
ment of an argument. 

Accordingly, in entering on the discussion of Argument, 
Aristotle premises the Definition of Syllogism, as a " Sentence, 
in which certain things being stated, something different from 
what has been laid down, results, of necessity, on account of 
what has been laid down," 1 — a definition, which being evidently 
drawn from observation of the particular instances, in which 
that connection between the three terms employed in an argu- 

1 2uk\oyi<r/u.os oi itrri koyo;, iv o3, riSiv- rcajru, iivoci to $icc tolvtu. tru/u-ficcivtiv. 
tcov rivwv, iri(>ov n rwv xiiftivwv \\ uvdyKva Analytica Piiora, i. c. 1 ; also Topica, 
irv/ufixivti T'Z tuvtk uvoci' Atyeo lUi T'Z 1, 1 . 



EFFICIENT PHILOSOPHY. 85 

ment, which constitutes its logical validity, is exemplified, in 
the development of his system serves as the principle, by which 
the conclusiveness of an argument from any given combination 
of two propositions as its premises, may be tested. As he pro- 
ceeds, he appears to be distinguishing syllogisms into the two 
kinds of demonstrative and dialectical. But this is a difference, 
not in the form of the reasoning, but in the matter of the propo- 
sitions, with which the dialectician has to do, as he differs from 
the philosopher. The dialectician is regarded as a controversialist 
on some proposed question, on which he has to take his side, and 
to support his own view, and impugn that of his adversary, 
who takes the contradictory of it, by every argument in his 
power. He reasons, accordingly, from the apparent and the 
probable : such principles suffice for his purpose : whereas the 
philosopher, having immutable truth for his end, according to 
the strict ancient notion of science, 'E^r^, is restricted by the 
object of his pursuit to such principles as are both primary 
and true. In the proceedings of both, however, Syllogism is the 
one and the same Form into which their arguments, so far as 
they are valid, are capable of being resolved ; so that there are 
not, in fact, two kinds of syllogistic reasoning, but one common 
method under the name of Syllogism, whether the conclusions 
drawn by the reasoner be necessary, or only apparent and pro- 
bable truth. For the probable or apparent truth of the conclu- 
sion must as necessarily follow from the probable premises, as 
the necessary truth of the philosopher's conclusion from the 
necessary premises from which it is argued. 

Such being the case — Syllogism being the universal Form of 
all arguments, — it has been attributed to Aristotle as an incon- 
sistency, that he does not use that form in his own discussions, 
but adduces his arguments in the ordinary popular way. And this 
has been alleged as an objection against the usefulness of his 
exposition of the Syllogism. By the Schoolmen, indeed, of the 
Middle Ages, we find the method of arguing in formal syllo- 
gisms adopted, through a perverse application of what Aristotle 
himself intended to be an instruction in the nature and resources 



86 ARISTOTLE. 

of argument, and not as a pattern to be actually followed in the 
business of discussion : and this notable example has probably 
given occasion to a similar objection in modern times. Such a 
misapplication, indeed, was not unlike the absurdity of a sculptor 
or painter ostensibly displaying his knowledge of Anatomy, by 
executing the forms which he carves or paints, according to the 
framework of the skeletons which he has studied, without the 
clothings of the flesh and the roundings of the joints, as they 
appear in the living and moving form. In earlier times, this 
objection took the form of a doubt as to the propriety of Aris- 
totle's proceeding in reasoning or using syllogisms in establish- 
ing the truths respecting Syllogism, as he has done in his Ana- 
lytics ; because, it was said, we " cannot use an instrument 
before we have constructed it." It was felt necessary, therefore, 
to answer tins objection, by the distinction between " natural and 
artificial " Logic — " the natural, being that which even the 
most ignorant employ, as an instinctive power by which they 
form syllogisms and carry on argumentation ; the artificial, that 
which Aristotle had constructed out of the natural, by observing 
the methods and processes by which others, by means of natural 
logic, philosophized, and reducing them all to precepts and rules 
of art." 1 So just is this observation of the ancient Latin logi- 
cian, that it at once explains and vindicates the importance attri- 
buted by Aristotle to the Syllogism in every exercise of reasoning. 

1 " Quum enim duplex sit logica, una quae dicta sunt de syllogismo naturali et 

naturalis, altera artificiosa, logicam qui- artificioso, colligitur solutio ciyjusdam 

dem naturalem, nemo unquam invenit, dubii, quod plerisque negotium facessit : 

vel coraposuit ; est enim innata quaedam Aristoteles enim in lib. Categoi'iarum, 

vis, et animis hominum insita, per quam et in libro de Interpretatione, saepe ra- 

etiam ignorantissimi homines, syllogis- tiocinatur et syllogismos facit ; quum 

mos et argumentationes faciunt, quum tamen nihil adhuc de syllogismo docue- 

nullo studio, nulloque labore, earn acqui- rit ; quod quidem non recte factum vide- 

siverint ; sed logica artificiosa ab Aris- tur; quia non possumus instrumento 

totele inventa et composita esse dicitur ; uti, priusquam ipsum construxcrimus. 

ex logica namque naturali, qua alii, solo Ad hoc dicimus, ignorari quidem syllo- 

ducti in stinctu naturae, utebantur, Aris- gissimum artificiosum antelibros Analy- 

toteles artificiosam logicam genuit; nimi- ticos, sed non propterea tolli usum syllo- 

rum observans methodos et progressus, gismi naturalis,'' etc. — Jacobi Zabarellae, 

quibus per logicam naturalem alii philo- Oper. Logic. — De Ata Fig. Syllog. c. 5. 

sophabantur; omnesque ad praocepta, et p. 106. Basil. 1594. 
ad regulas artis, redigens. . . Ex his 



EFFICIENT PHILOSOPHY. 87 

In following out his application of the Definition of Syllogism 
as a test of the validity of Arguments, we shall obtain a clearer 
idea of his proceeding by observing the peculiar phraseology 
which he employs. And this is rendered the more necessary by 
the fact, that his Logic has descended to us of the Western 
Church, in a Latinized form, by which it has lost something of 
its primitive character in appearance. The original technical 
terms appear to have been drawn from notions belonging to Geo- 
metry or Arithmetic, indicating their derivation through the 
schools of the Pythagoreans ; devoted, as these were, to mathe- 
matics, and fond of interpreting the truths of Philosophy by 
fanciful applications of geometrical figures and of Numbers. 
Thus, what is "proposition" in the Latin expression, is in Aris- 
totle, KgoroHHs, " extension, as from one point to another ; " it 
would be represented probably by a line drawn; of which 
the two extremities would be the two terms ; therefore called 
the extremes, axpa, or the boundaries, oeot, of the proposition ; 
and the distance between them as the "interval," didtrri^a, — 
another form of expression for a proposition, as a line situ- 
ated between its extreme points — carrying on the same notion. 
The two terms are distinguished as the first and last in posi- 
tion, and as the major and minor in magnitude ; and when 
he has further to introduce the consideration of a third term, he 
characterizes it as intermediate in position, and also in magni- 
tude, relatively to the two terms of the proposition with which 
it has successively to be compared in an argument. Even the 
derivation of the word Syllogism is from Arithmetic, as it 
implies a reckoning or summing up in a result the several 
items, like those of a sum in Arithmetic, which have been 
previously separately stated. 1 His use again of Letters to 
represent the subject and predicate of a Proposition, seems to 
have been adopted from the practice of mathematicians in 
denoting magnitudes in that manner. 

1 Among the moderns Hobbes has treme Nominalism. With him, reasoning 
carried this notion of reasoning to the is nothing but reckoning of consequences 
utmost excess, as it favoured his ex- of words. 



88 ARISTOTLE. 

The schoolmen, in carrying the notions of the Physics and 
Metaphysics into the science of Logic, obscnred, by the strange 
dialect in which the truths of the science were thus delivered, 
its proper nature as a science conversant about language. 
Thus, according to them, we hear of the " substance," and 
"matter," and "form," of propositions and of syllogisms. On 
the contrary, the technical expressions of Aristotle himself are 
extremely few, and those strictly appropriate to the subject, 
elucidating the characteristic nature of a science conversant 
about words as they are signs of thought. The scholastic 
method and language however, from long prescription, have so 
ingrafted themselves on our modes of writing and speaking, that 
some acquaintance with them is in fact become necessary to us 
at this day ; and may so far, therefore, be regarded as constituting 
a legitimate part of modern logic. But when the technicalities 
of this system are made a ground of objection to the Aristotelic 
logic, it may be answered, that these are not parts of Aristotle's 
system, as it is found in the original, but the refinements of his 
commentators. 

It is, however, to the Latin schools, that our established ter- 
minology in Logic is to be almost exclusively traced as to its 
actual form ; and much of the modern misconceptions of its 
nature may be attributed to that source. 

Aristotle pursues the examination into Syllogisms, and de- 
termines what are, or are not, valid forms of its expression, in the 
following manner. Every conclusion is to be viewed, anterior to 
its proof by argument, as a question to 'be proved, and its subject 
and predicate as the terms of the question. The object of the 
argument is, to bring those terms into logical connection with 
each other, by means of a third, with which they separately have, 
each, such connection. This third term is designated by Aristotle 
a " mean" p'scfov, or middle term. We must suppose a line on 
which the three terms stand, the first which is also the major, on 
one extremity of it, the third, also called the " last and minor," on 
the other extremity, and " the middle," on the middle of the line, 
or somewhere between the extremities. The first, the major, is 



EFFICIENT PHILOSOPHY. 89 

defined as "that in which another is ;" the last, and minor, " that 
which is in another ;" the middle, "that in which another is, and 
which is itself in another." When the major and middle and 
minor are placed in the three propositions of a syllogism in 
this their proper order, we obtain what Aristotle calls, by a 
mathematical designation, the First and perfect Figure, <r%S?^a, the 
true and proper model, as it were, of every valid argument ; 
because in it the evidence of the necessity of the conclusion is 
direct, needing no extrinsic consideration to make it manifest ; 
a valid conclusion in this Figure following, of necessity, from the 
premises, fulfils the requirement in the definition of Syllogism. 2 

But the middle term may be so displaced in an argument, 
as to occupy the position of the major instead of its own, and 
to become, in fact, the major term, and the predicate, of both 
the premises. Or again, the middle term may occupy the place 
of the minor, and become the subject of both premises. In 
the former of these two instances we have Aristotle's Second 
Figure ; in the latter, his Third Figure. And these three Figures, 
according to him, are all the varieties of position in which the 
three terms can be regarded, in their relations to each other in a 
syllogism. His commentators, — Galen, or whoever it was that 
introduced the innovation, — added a Fourth Figure ; looking 
rather, it seems, to the various combinations which might be 
formed of the four kinds of Propositions in the premises, than to 
the different positions of the middle term in relation to the two 
terms of the question, according to Aristotle's more correct view. 
But this Fourth Figure, whilst it reverses the proper position of 
the middle term, as it stands, according to its definition, — making 
it the predicate of the premiss in which the first and major term 



1 Quemadmodum enim figura mathe- figures used in illustrating the logical 

matica consurgit ex dispositione linea- treatises of Aristotle, that St. Augus- 

rum, ut patet in triangulo et quadran- tine refers, when he speaks [Confess. 

gulo, sic etiam syllogistica consurgit ex iv. 16) of some studying the Catego- 

dispositione terminorum. — Cursus Phi- ries, magistris eruditissimis, non lo- 

losoph. Acad. Complutens. per Fr. Mur- quentibus tantum, sed mult a in pulvere 

ciam. Colon. 1644, p. 58. depingentibus. 

It is to some geometrical lines or 2 Anal. Pr. 1, 4. 



90 ARISTOTLE. 

is, 1 and the subject of that in which the last and minor is, and 
greater in extent, accordingly, than the major, yet less in extent 
than the minor, — involves an absurdity in the conception of it as 
a middle term ; so that we must then abandon Aristotle's defini- 
tion of it, and in such case regard the major as, virtually, the 
middle. On this account the Fourth Figure of modern logicians 
appears to have been justly omitted by Aristotle. 2 

Subordinate to this arrangement of Syllogisms in the Three 
Figures, is the distribution of them into Cases, wrucsig, or Modes, 
analogous to the different cases of a geometrical theorem or 
problem. Here we have to suppose the four classes of Proposi- 
tions — Universal Affirmative, Particular Affirmative, Universal 
Negative, Particular Negative, combined in every possible way 
as the premises and conclusion of a syllogism, in each of the 
Three Figures, and to determine what are valid cases or not, in 
accordance with the definition of a Syllogism, by observing when 
a conclusion follows of necessity from each given combination, 
and when it does not. 

This inquiry has been greatly facilitated by the method in 
which it is pursued in modern Treatises. We are furnished 
in these with several distinct principles, or rules, by which 
we may at once determine, that, from certain combinations of 
propositions in each Figure, no valid conclusion can be drawn. 
We are directed to observe, whether the middle term is a dis- 
tributed," i. e. taken in its full acceptation as ■ an universal, once 
at least in the premises ; whether one, at least, of the premises 
is universal, and one, at least, affirmative ; to see that no term 



1 Aristotle's expression of " being jects to Aristotle's account of the Svllo- 
in," has been sometimes misconceived, gism, that it puts the middle term in 
as if it were equivalent to " being con- an unnatural place. He has been evi- 
tained in," as one box may be contained dently misled by the circumstance of 
in another. The fact is, that the term or the middle appearing accidentally out 
notion which is said to be in another, is of its proper position as it occurs in 
conceived to be greater in extent than the premises of a Syllogism, and which 
that in which it is said to be — or to ex- is an arrangement belonging to the con- 
tend over that, in which, in logical sideration of grammar rather than of 
phrase, it is said to be. loo-ic 



2 Locke (Hum. Und., iv. c. 17). ob- 



EFFICIENT PHILOSOPHY. 91 

be distributed in the conclusion, which was not distributed 
in the premises : all which observations are useful practical 
directions, enabling us summarily to dismiss a great number of 
combinations of propositions as invalid for the construction of a 
syllogism. Propositions are now familiarized to us in logical 
Treatises under their respective letters, A, E, I, 0, as marks of 
their quality and quantity : A denoting Universal Affirmatives, 
E, Universal Negatives, I, particular Affirmatives, 0, particular 
Negatives ; these vowels forming, by ingenious combinations in 
words, with certain consonants, — which are also indices to pro- 
cesses to be performed in the investigation of each case, — the 
several names of the valid syllogisms in each Figure, 1 and at the 
same time marking the propositions themselves, in their order, in 
each syllogism. 

Aristotle directs our attention simply to the question of the 
necessity of the consequence. He gives us the three terms with- 
out throwing them into propositions, and directs us to the con- 
sideration whether they follow (a%o\ovfoi) one another, in logical 
sequence, in the three propositions which make up the syllogism. 
It is manifest in the four Cases or Modes of the First Figure, 
that the terms are so placed as to " follow one another in this 
relation and order;" that, therefore, all syllogisms so constructed 
are valid, whilst all other combinations of propositions in the 
same Figure not answering to this condition of relation in the 
terms, are invalid. Then the syllogistic character, or conclusive- 
ness of each, is tested, in cases where it fails, by particular 
experiments. If, in any formula, the same disposition of the 
terms being supposed ; an affirmative conclusion is true in one 
case, and a negative one in another, by a change in one of the 
terms as to matter and meaning ; it is evident, that there is no 
invariableness in that mode, and no necessity of sequence ; and 
the definition of the syllogism, accordingly, is not exemplified in it. 



1 Alexander of Aphrodisias, the great technical system, such as that which 

commentator on Aristotle in the latter has descended to us through the Latin 

half of the second century, is supposed logicians, 
to have been the first to introduce a 



92 ARISTOTLE. 

In the Second and Third Figures, however, the middle term 
being out of its own proper position, the necessity of the conse- 
quence is not self-evident as it is in the First, and on that 
account the syllogisms in them, though valid no less than those 
in the First, are styled incomplete, or imperfect. 

This introduces the consideration of what is called the Reduc- 
tion of Syllogisms ; or the bringing the imperfect modes of the 
Second and Third Figures to the corresponding perfect ones 
of the First. It is not that their conclusiveness requires to be 
proved by other syllogisms in the First Figure, or confirmed by 
them. It is only in the sense that they are accidental deviations 
from the natural logic of the mind ; and require therefore to be 
reduced to that order, and thus shewn to be real though indirect 
evidences of it. 

This Eeduction is of two kinds. It is either (1) Ostensive, 
or (2) Ad impossihile. It is Ostensive, when the very same con- 
clusion as before in the imperfect mode, or one which implies it, 
is proved also by a mode of the First Figure. 1 It is A d Impossi- 
bile, when, by some mode in the First Figure, the conclusion of 
the imperfect mode is proved (not directly as true, but) that it 
cannot be false. The principles of Opposition and Conversion 
furnish the rules for effecting these purposes. 

Strictly then, in a true science of Logic, in the Philosophy 
of Eeasoning, the First Figure, in its four valid cases or modes, 
alone deserves a place. This alone is a portion of the history of 
the mind. The other Figures take their rise from the expedients 
of Argument, and belong rather to the dialectician, as he is 
distinguished from the logician. And they are, accordingly, 
adduced by Aristotle for his purpose. The Second Figure, for 
example, spoken of is as of especial use in refutation of an 
opponent in disputation : the Third Figure for bringing objec- 

1 Hence the excellent service of the well-known mnemonic lines : — 

" Barbara, Celarenl, Darii, Fcrioque, prioris, JBokardo, Ferison, liabet ; Quarta insuper 

Cesare, Camestres, Festino, Baroko, se- addit 

cundae, Bramantip, Camenes, Dimaris, Fesapo, Fre- 

Tertia, Darapti, Disamis, Datisi, Felapton, sison." 



EFFICIENT PHILOSOPHY. 93 

tions. For in the Second, we have none but negative conclusions ; 
in the Third, none but particular ones. And these serve respec- 
tively for refutation or objection. It is only the First Figure 
that is available for universal affirmative conclusions, and, ac- 
cordingly, for direct scientific demonstration of what is. 

If indeed the two latter Figures were nothing more than 
expedients in argument resorted to by the disputant, the con- 
sideration of them would properly enter into a treatise of Logic. 
The artificial forms of Eeasoning which human ingenuity has 
produced should not be overlooked in such a science ; inasmuch 
as these forms are in themselves phenomena of the mind. And 
instead of its being any just matter of the complaint which has 
been made of his seeking to demonstrate a demonstration, it is a 
great merit in the system of Aristotle, that he has thus reduced 
instances which appeared at variance with his theory of argu- 
mentation, to a conformity with it. 

Nor has the utility of this portion of Logic ceased with its 
application to the business of the disputant. The Eeduction of 
Syllogisms, from an imperfect mode to the perfect one, still 
remains as an excellent exercise of the mind in order to an 
acquaintance with the science of Logic, and for a practical dex- 
terity in the use of its rules in argument ; and it is therefore, 
further, by no means to be despised or neglected in our study of 
the Science. 

Having thus pointed out the several cases of Syllogisms into 
which every valid argument must resolve itself, Aristotle, in 
pursuit of the adaptation of his method to the business of dispu- 
tation, according to the practice of the Greek schools, and the 
colloquial discussions in conformity to that practice, proceeds to 
shew further how Modal propositions, — propositions, in which 
the statement is not simply as in those previously considered, 
that A is B ; but with some modification ; as, that A is neces- 
sarily B, or possibly B ; and to point out how the conclusion 
must be affected by such statements in the premises. This, 
perhaps, is the most intricate part of his discussion ; as it turns 
on subtile distinctions with respect to the force of the con- 



94 ARISTOTLE. 

clitions thus imposed on the predicate. But however useful it 
may have been for its original purpose, — that nothing might be 
omitted which would supply the disputant with a ready answer 
under whatever point of view an argument might be presented, 
this discussion is, in great measure, superseded in the modern 
study of Logic, by the consideration that a modal proposition 
may be immediately transformed into a pure categorical one, by 
attaching the condition of necessity or possibility to the predi- 
cate as a part of the notion of the predicate : as, for example, 
the modal proposition " A must be B, v is identical with the cate- 
gorical " A is a necessary B ; " or " A may be B," is identical with 
il A is a possible B." 

From his whole examination thus carried on through the two 
books of the Prior Analytics, of all the forms in which a valid 
argument may be alleged, the conclusion results, that the prin- 
ciple of the reasoning is the same in all ; each instance of such 
argument developing the theoretic power of language ; according 
to which, terms denoting Being are classes more or less compre- 
hensive, more or less extensive, of observations on the thing, the 
object of thought, whose being it expresses. 

This ultimate principle of all reasoning is commonly stated 
in the form of a theorem, enunciating that " whatever is predi- 
cated (affirmed or denied) universally, of any class of things, 
may be predicated in like manner of anything contained in, or 
signified by, that class." This is that form of it known by the 
scholastic designation of the " Dictum de Omni et Nullo!' From 
the mode in which this principle has been introduced in systems 
of Logic founded on the method of the School-authors, a prejudice 
has been excited against Aristotle, as if he had employed the 
principle in establishing the conclusiveness of arguments already 
granted to be conclusive. Aristotle, however, does not introduce 
the principle in any formal manner, as a dogma or a priori 
ground of logical truth. On the contrary, it pervades the whole 
of his system, as resulting from every part of his inquiry. He 
is only concerned to shew that every argument, however varied 
in its mode, or form, is reducible to a form by which the truth 



EFFICIENT PHILOSOPHY. 95 

of the theory shall be evidenced in it. Syllogisms are not proved 
by the principle ; but the principle itself is proved by the nature 
of the syllogism, as any other philosophical truth is deduced from 
varied observations and experiments. In short, by his reference 
to the principle, he does not prove the conclusiveness of a given 
argument, but accounts for it. 

In modern treatises of logic, we find the notice of a form of 
syllogism, the hypothetical, of which no express mention is made 
by Aristotle, though he frequently throws his reasonings into 
that form. The account of this omission may be, that this form 
seems to belong more directly to the business of Investigation 
than to that of Argument. For, in investigating the truth on any 
matter, it is most important, in the first place, to limit the 
inquiry as far as possible, by examining hypotheses concerning 
it, and setting aside such as may be found impossible or insuffi- 
cient ; or to commence, by considering, in how many ways certain 
phenomena may be accounted for, and to accept that which gives 
the best solution of the facts. A Hypothetical Syllogism, in fact, 
as such, calls our attention more to the truth involved in the 
several propositions of a syllogism, than to the formal connection 
of its terms. That connection is assumed to be logically correct ; 
the conclusion necessarily following from the premises. Now, as 
a true conclusion may be drawn from false premises, inasmuch 
as a conclusion depends simply on what is formally affirmed or 
denied, and not on what is true, in the premises, there is occa- 
sion for considering the relation of the premises to the conclusion, 
as to how the assertion or denial of the one affects the assertion 
or denial of the other in point of truth or falsehood. Hypo- 
theticals, then, are evidently not logically distinct from catego- 
rical Syllogisms. 1 When argumentatively employed, they are 
only compendious modes of stating a syllogism, or several 
syllogisms, when several are combined in one argument, as the 

1 Archbishop Whately (Elements of as "a case;" as, for instance, "If A is 

Logic, p. 120), points out, how a Hypo- B, C is D," may be stated thus; " the 

thetical may be expressed in the form of case of A being B," is a case of C being 

a Categorical, by putting the hypothesis I), etc. 



96 ARISTOTLE. 

case may be ; or of putting an argument in a clear and striking 
form. The consideration of them appears, in this respect, to 
belong to Metaphysics, rather than to Logic ; inasmuch as the 
premises of a given syllogism are, in a manner, the cause of the 
truth of the conclusion, and we speculate on them under this 
aspect as on two consecutive events, of which the one is the 
antecedent of the other. Hence, in treating of Hypotheticals, 
some logicians speak of them under the term of " Connected " 
syllogisms, and consider the premises and conclusion under 
the relation of antecedent and consequent ; laying down rules 
for the examination of them under this aspect. Thus they 
divide them into the two heads of, — 1. Conditional, in which the 
antecedent is granted, and therefore also the consequent ; SL 
Disjunctive, or in which the consequent is denied, and therefore 
also the antecedent ; as in these, — the 1st, If A is B, C is D — 
A is B, therefore C is D, or, C is not I), therefore A is not B ; 
the 2d, the Disjunctive, in which two or more alternatives are 
stated as the consequent, according to the formula, A is either 
B or C or D. But A is not B or C, therefore A is D. Aristotle 
speaks, indeed, of " Syllogisms from hypothesis, Ig biro&s<rsu$ ; but 
these appear to be, in his sense, arguments from analogy, rather 
than hypotheticals in the modern sense ; since he places them 
under the speculation of " the like," t\ tou 6{aoiov §eupia, as a 
ground of argument; and he rests the usefulness of such a 
proceeding, on the principle, that it is probable that what holds 
in the hypothetical case, holds also in the proposition with 
which the question is concerned. 1 

The examination of Syllogisms is followed up in the Posterior 
Analytics by an inquiry into Demonstration ; and in the Topics, 
into arguments founded on probable premises. The full discus- 
sion of the Syllogism was premised by him, inasmuch as the 
syllogistic process is common both to demonstration and to 
probable conclusions ; and accordingly, as the more general 
subject of investigation, claimed the first notice in a scientific 

1 Topica, i. 16. 



EFFICIENT PHILOSOPHY. 97 

treatise of Dialectic. 1 Properly, indeed, being the only part of 
the science which is really universal, — belonging to Argumenta- 
tion as such, under whatever form, whether by Induction, Ex- 
ample, or Enthymeme (all of which are only different modes of 
expression of the Syllogism), — whether the premises assumed be 
necessary or probable, it is the only province to which the science 
of Eeasoning, in its strictest sense, extends. In examining further 
the nature of Demonstration and of Probability, we depart 
from the rigorous limits of the science of Eeasoning, and approach 
those of Ehetoric. But it is useful, at the same time, to examine 
these subjects as detached from Ehetoric, and in their connection 
with Dialectic, so far as we then confine our attention to the 
mere force of different kinds of argument on the understanding; 
whereas Ehetoric combines also the view of them in their effect 
on the will. We then consider them as they are capable of pro- 
ducing either knowledge or opinion ; whereas, in the latter case, 
we look at them in that complete result which is implied in 
Persuasion. It was for the former purpose that they were 
required for the disputant ; and hence the consideration of 
them forms an important part of the several dialectical trea- 
tises which pass under the name of the Organon. Eor the same 
reason the concluding Treatise " On Sophisms" is directed not 
only to the solution of Fallacies which may exist in the syllo- 
gistic process, or in the reasoning, strictly viewed as reasoning, 
but to such also as may be traced in arguments where the pro- 
cess itself, the pure logic of the case, is perfectly correct. 

It has been objected, 2 that he resorted to abstract symbols, 
in the substitution of letters for terms having meaning, rather 
than to more familiar means of illustration, in order to leave 
the truths of the science partially veiled. There may be some 
truth in the assertion, that he did not intend his written works 
to be accessible to the public without oral exposition. But 



1 Anal. Pr. 1. 4. 'H ph yap atrofcifeis 2) complains of the use of Letters as a 
crvkXoyiirpos n;' o ffvKXoyiff(x.oi Ti ob <?ru$ " studied confusion.'' So also Ramus 
uvro$u%i$. abecedariisque exemplis obscuravit, In- 

2 John of Salisbury (Metalog., 1. 4, c. stitut. Dialect., p. 199. ; 

H 



98 ARISTOTLE. 

it does not apply here. The observation already made on 
the nature of logical being, may be sufficient to clear up any 
misconstruction on this point. The principle of classification, 
which is all that Logic, as the science of reasoning, is concerned 
with, could not be examined so scientifically and clearly in any 
other way as in that which expresses the principle itself nakedly. 
Everything else is irrelevant to the matter in hand. So far as 
anything else is attended to in a proposition, so far the mind is 
diverted from the logical point of view. His use of symbols, 
therefore, is only an illustration of his accurate and perfect 
method of developing the science. 1 

The discussion of Demonstration is an exposition of the 
nature of Science, 'Esr/ffr^, as it was understood by the Ancient 
philosophers. They restricted the application of the term, as has 
been already observed, to the knowledge of necessary truths — 
such truths as, when known, are known at the same time to be 
incapable of being otherwise. Aristotle, then, is employed, in 
the Posterior Analytics, in discussing the nature of the prin- 
ciples on which Science, as it was then understood, must be built. 

Here he had to encounter perplexities and misconceptions 
introduced into the subject by the Platonic philosophy. In 
Plato's system knowledge was mere reminiscence. It was a 
penetration of the mind through the veil of sensible things inter- 
posed between itself and the realities of the intellectual world — 
its return to those purer perceptions which it had enjoyed before 
its present union with a body. This doctrine was altogether 
founded on a fallacious view of the nature of Demonstration. 
Because in Demonstration the conclusion is necessarily implied 
in the premises, it was conceived, that a science or proper know- 
ledge of any particular was in all cases founded on a knowledge 
of the general principles in which it was implied. But this was 
an inversion of the actual order of knowledge, which commences 
with the particular, and ends in the general. In mathematical 
and metaphysical science the two things coincide ; the notions 

1 The use of unmeaning symbols in Logic rests on the same footing as their use 
in geometry and algebra. 



EFFICIENT PHILOSOPHY. 99 

of our mind being, on the one hand, in themselves particular 
facts, from which we may argue to general principles ; and, on 
the other hand, in their application to the business of philosophy, 
being the general principles of our knowledge. But Plato argued 
from this circumstance in these sciences to their general coin- 
cidence, and thus confused Demonstration with the scientific 
arrangement of facts. Aristotle, we find, was not free from the 
same fault in his Physics ; but in his theory of Demonstration he 
has strictly provided against it. He has here pointed out the 
difference between the proof of matter of fact and matter of 
abstract speculation. Instead of inculcating the necessity of 
establishing every conclusion in Science by syllogism or a demon- 
strative process, he shews that all Demonstration proceeds on 
assumed principles in each science ; which principles, accord- 
ingly, must be obtained from observations generalized, and not 
by a process of deduction from the general to the particular. 1 

There is one part of the work which deserves a more parti- 
cular notice, as throwing light on his whole method of philoso- 
phizing, while it shews how far he approximated to the Induc- 
tion of Modern philosophy. To obtain an accurate notion of the 
being of any thing, we require a definition of it. A definition of 
the thing corresponds, in Logic, with the essential notion of it in 
Metaphysics. This abstract notion, then, according to Aristotle, 
constituting the true scientific view of a thing, — and all the real 
knowledge consequently of the properties of the thing depending 
on the right limitation of this notion, — some exact method of 
arriving at definitions which should express these limitations, 
became indispensable in such a system of philosophy. But in 
order to attain such definitions, a process of Induction was 
required — not merely an induction of that kind which is only a 
peculiar form of syllogism, respecting all the individuals of 
a class, as constituting that class ; but an induction of a philo- 
sophical character, and only differing from the Induction ol 
Modern philosophy, so far as it is employed, not in the limita- 
tion of facts, but of the notions of the mind in their expression 
by words. 

1 Anahjt. Post. ii. c. ult. 7, 4, i. 13. 



100 ARISTOTLE. 

There are, then, two kinds of Induction treated of by Aris- 
totle. The first, that of simple enumeration. Its use is, where 
we may have not beforehand ascertained a class to which we 
may refer the subject under consideration, and the search is, in 
fact, for a middle term. In this case, then, a collection of all the 
individuals which are supposed numerically to make up the 
class, serves instead of a middle term. Assuming, accordingly, 
that these individuals are equivalent to the class, we throw our 
observations on them into a general form, declaring, that what is 
predicated of each of these individuals singly viewed, may be 
predicated of them as a whole — that is, of the universal which 
represents them. There is no process of investigation involved 
in regard to the particulars themselves ; but it is assumed, that 
we have found the assertion made respecting them true in all 
known instances ; and the Induction is simply the bringing 
them under a common principle, which is, in fact, a summary 
statement of them all, exempted from that actual plurality under 
which they present themselves to our observation. Such induc- 
tion is reducible to the form of a syllogism, as Aristotle shews; 1 
but in its immediate use as an argument it may be con- 
sidered distinct ; inasmuch as it is the necessary expedient of 
the disputant, where he has no middle term at hand that 
may at once connect the two terms of the question ; when, 
accordingly, he must seek a substitute for it in the observa- 
tion of the several individuals which are the subject of his argu- 
ment. 2 

The Greek language, it may be observed, admits of a more 
correct statement of a Proposition than our own. Aristotle thus 
uses the expression ^rag avd^iro^ in the singular in stating an 

1 Anahjtica Priora, ii. c. 25 ; Topica, ii. c. 25. Rhet. i. c. 2. He uses the verb 
i. c. 10. Induction, he there says, is Wuyuv, in a loose sense, that of bring- 
more persuasive and more knowable in ing a particular to the universal, in 
respect of perception, and common to which it exists antecedently to its 
the multitude; but syllogism more con- being known so to exist ; as when in a 
straining, and more effective against syllogism of the first figure the minor 
those who are disposed to be contra- premiss is subjoined to the major. This 
dictory. notion appears to run through his ex- 

2 Topica, viii. c. 2 ; Anahjtica Priora, planation of Induction. 



EFFICIENT PHILOSOPHY. 101 

universal proposition of which " man " is the subject, when by the 
idiom of our language we are obliged to say " all men f which is 
as if we meant to collect all the individuals of the human race 
under that term ; whereas the Greek xag uydguKog, strictly denotes 
the universal term " man v as a whole, and when joined in a pro- 
position with a predicate, that that predicate is in the whole. 
Now, as an Induction takes that form of expression, stating that 
" all these individuals are this," it is open to the like misunder- 
standing as universal affirmatives in general. "We are apt to 
suppose that the conclusion applies to the individuals themselves, 
instead of to that which is common to them, i.e., the universal, 
in which they are regarded as one. The word " all " in the uni- 
versal affirmative proposition, as Aristotle himself observes, does 
"not signify the universal," to xadoXov, denoted by the term to which 
it is attached ; but that the predication is universal ; and, in 
like manner, " none," pydeTg, does not, according to its etymology, 
mean "no one," 1 but that the negation is wholly taken, the predi- 
cate entirely exempted from the subject. The term " man," in 
fact, in a particular proposition, is itself no less an universal, 
when we say " some men," than when anything is predicated of 
it universally. 

Now, it is evident, that when the word "all" is used in 
Inductions, it is intended to apply to the universality of the 
predication, and not to that of the term which is the subject of 
the conclusion, from the following consideration : — that if it were 
applied to the individuals which are here the subject of the con- 
clusion, the conclusion would not, so understood, be true. For 
then it would disregard all their peculiarities ; it would state 
that to be true concerning them hi their individuality, which 
was only true of them in regard to their possession of the common 
nature, or the universal. What is true, for example, of Triangle 
generally, is not true of the isoceles as such, but only as it has 
the common nature signified by the word, Triangle. What is true 

Interpret. CC. 7, 10, to yoig <roi; ob to ryifteiivti, vi oti kuO'oXou tou ovofjtu.ro; '/ 
xrJoXou ff'AfAKivii '«XX' on ku6'oXou HU.ru.tyu.aiv '/) ocprotyuo'iv. 

VlfTl TO TUC, Y, (JL'/]hl\$, OvhlV CcXXo T^O- 



102 ARISTOTLE. 

of Virtue generally, is not true of Temperance or Courage, as 
these differ from one another individually. 

On this account, it is clearly unnecessary, for a just infe- 
rence from Induction, when considered as an Evidence of fact, 
that all the individuals belonging to the subject should pass in 
review before the mind. It is enough that a large survey of 
instances should be taken in which the predicate is found to hold 
good ; and if it be found in such as have fallen under our 
notice in this survey, we may then infer, that the predicate 
applies universally to that common nature which exists in those 
instances, and in any others resembling them that may subse- 
quently occur to our observation. Hence, in the investigations 
of Modern science, according to the method of Bacon, one instance, 
if only thoroughly examined, is sufficient for establishing the 
general fact resulting, or what, in Ancient Philosophy, would be 
called "the universal." 

Aristotle, however, looking to Induction as a mode of Argu- 
ment, rather than as an Evidence of Fact, requires that an Induc- 
tion should be from "all the particulars." 1 Otherwise, indeed, it 
would not furnish a conclusive argument ; there would be no 
formal necessity in the inference. 2 

But the higher kind of Induction is also employed by him, 
and in its application, as has been observed above, to the exact 
definition of terms. As it appears that words, when predicated 
of any object, are classes, more or less extensive, of observations 
on that object, it is evident, that we must gradually approximate 
towards a definition of any individual notion, by assigning class 
within class, until we have narrowed the extent of the expression 
as far as may be required in order to a distinct apprehension of it. 3 
The first definition of any object cannot but be rude and imperfect, 
as founded on some obvious resemblance which it exhibits to 

1 Analyt. Pr. ii. c. 25 Au Ti vouv to as above in saying : — estque ea enunie- 
r s'| ccyruvTuv tuv xccDsxuirrov (ruyxtiftsvov ratio particulariurn, haud aliud quaui 
h ya.% la-aywy)) o^ia Txvruv. ipsum generale aliis verbis prolatum, seu 

2 Wallis reduces Induction to a Syllo- ipsius exegeticuni. — Logica, iii. c. 15. 
gism both in the First and Third Figures, 3 Analyt. Post., ii. c. 13, Z««r» ft h7 
but prefers the resolution into the Third; l«r<j3A.sar«vr* sari ra. efioix xou aSixtpoga, 
and for this purpose explains it nearly -t^utov ti xttxmtx vxbrov s^ovo-tv, x. r. x. 



EFFICIENT PHILOSOPHY. 103 

other objects. And it has been further pointed out, how, as we 
continue our observation, we find other classes included in the 
extent of the one to which it was first referred. Hence, as these 
several classes are subordinate to each other, and are all depen- 
dent on the primary one (for this primary one will be different 
according to the purpose contemplated in denning the object), 1 
the full definition of the object, under the aspect taken of it 
in each case, will be the result of successive eliminations of 
everything extrinsic to it, everything unessential to it. 1 

Xow, the process by which we discover these successive genera 
in forming a definition, is strictly one of philosophical Induction. 
As in the philosophy of Nature in general, we take certain facts 
as the basis of inquiry, and proceed by rejection and exclusion of 
principles involved in the inquiry, until at last — there appear- 
ing no ground for further rejection — we conclude that we are in 
possession of the true principle or law, of the facts examined ; 
so in the philosophy of language, in drawing forth an exact out- 
line of any object of thought, we must proceed by a like rejection 
and exclusion of notions implied in the general term with which we 
set out, until we reach the very confines of that notion with which 
our inquiry is concerned. This exclusion is effected in language 
by annexing to the general term denoting the class to which 
the object is primarily referred, other terms not including in 
them those other objects or notions to which the higher general 
term applies. For thus, whilst each successive term in the 
definition, in itself, extends to more than the object so defined, 
yet all viewed together do not ; and this their relative bearing on 
the one point marks out and constitutes the being of the thing. 2 
This is thus illustrated by Aristotle : — "If we are inquir- 



1 "Definitions are divided iD to Nomi- it be the enumeration of attributes, or 

nal and Pieal, according to the object of the physical or the metaphysical 

accomplished by them : -whether to ex- parts of the essence." — Abp. "Whateley, 

plain, merely, the meaning of the word, Elem. of Logic, B. ii. c. 5. 
or the nature of the thing : on the other 

hand they are divided into Accidental, " Analyt. Post., ii. c. 13, £v txatrro* 

Physical, and Logical, according to the /u,tv \<r) <rXiov vva.o%a, civ-cui-a. II fir. Iri 

means employed by each for accomplish- tXiov' <ra.6rr,v yug uvdyx-n ola-tav then rov 

ing their respective objects ; whether -r^ccy^ocTo:, p. 173, Du Val. 



104 ARISTOTLE. 

ing," lie says, " what magnanimity is, we must consider the 
instances of certain magnanimous persons whom we know, what 
one thing they all have, so far forth as they are such ; as, — if 
Alcibiades was magnanimous, or Achilles, or Ajax, — what one 
thing they all have; say 'impatience under insult;' for one 
made war, another raged, the other slew himself : again, in the 
instances of others, as of Lysander or Socrates, — if here, it is 
'to be unaltered by prosperity or adversity ;' taking these two 
cases, I consider, what this 'apathy in regard to events/ and 
' impatience under insult/ have the same in them. If now they 
have nothing the same, there must be two species of magnani- 
mity." 1 So, again, he suggests a similar process in order to 
ascertain the nature of anything. He directs that the investiga- 
tion should commence from the genus ; since, having discovered 
the properties or sequences of the genus, we have also the se- 
quences to the next class in the series, — and so on from that 
class to the next below in order, — until by this continued pro- 
cess we reach the individual object examined. In the course of 
investigation, also, he observes, that we should attend to whatever 
is common, and examine to what class of objects that belongs, 
and what classes fall under it ; 2 and for the same reason select 
analogies ; since, in both these instances, we obtain genera, under 
which the object investigated may be arranged. The process is 
virtually the same as if we should investigate a fact or law of 
nature. But the Induction of Aristotle, having for its object to 
determine accurately in words the notion of the being of things, 
proceeds, according to the nature of language, from the general, 
and ends in the particular ; whereas the investigation of a law 
of nature proceeds from the particular, and ends in the general. 
In the process each kind of Induction is an analysis. But logical 
Induction is synthetical in the result, whilst philosophical In- 
duction is analytical throughout. The former labours to par- 
ticularize as much as possible, counteracting the uncertainty 
occasioned by the generalizations of language, whilst the latter is 
engaged in penetrating the confused masses in which objects 
1 Anal. Post,, ii. c. 13, p. 175, Du Val. - lbid. } ii. c. 11. 



EFFICIENT PHILOSOPHY. 105 

first present themselves to the mind, and exploring their most 
general and characteristic form. Thus the Induction of Aristotle 
was strictly eiraywyfa or the bringing in of notion on notion, each 
successively limiting the application of the preceding one in 
regular series, so as at length to present a distinct notion of the 
object defined. 1 The notion thus obtained in words is the logos, 
or expressed reason of the being of the thing ; and hence perhaps 
the prevalence of the name Logic 2 as appropriate to this branch 
of science, instead of the more general and ancient designation 
of Dialectic, — which expresses rather the application of the science 
to the ancient mode of disputation, than its philosophical nature. 
It would appear, then, that Bacon has not done strict justice 
to Aristotle in the contemptuous manner in which he has spoken 
of the Induction adopted and practised by philosophers before 
himself, as if the fault of it were entirely attributable to Aristotle. 
Doubtless, in the view of Aristotle, Induction, even in its higher 
sense, is extremely limited in its design and pursuit ; as con- 
versant about the correct statement of the particular notions on 
which an inquiry turns, rather than the discovery of new truth : 
nor is it set forth with a due appreciation of its scientific im- 
portance, or with any approach to that method which Bacon de- 
veloped in the Novum Organum. But it is sound and valid so 
far as it reaches ; and it shews that Aristotle was not intent on 
corrupting Philosophy with Logic, but rather on applying Logic 
to that very purpose which Bacon himself so much insists on — 
the bringing the intellect even and unprejudiced to the business 
of Science. Of the practical application of Induction in its 
extreme importance as an Evidence of fact, Aristotle presents 
abundant specimens, and particularly in his Treatises on Ethics 
and Ehetoric. His discussion of the Passions in the latter treatise 
is a masterpiece in that way. He sets out, indeed, abstractedly 
with definitions of the several passions ; but these are the results 
at which he has arrived by Induction ; being obtained, as his 

1 Anal. Prior., ii. c. 23. not the noun XoyixM to denote the science, 

2 Aristotle uses the adverb Xoyinajs, and only Aixktxrtxyi. 
as in Met., vii. c. 4, and elsewhere; but 



106 ARISTOTLE. 

subsequent observations shew, by a close interrogation of Nature ; 
by examining accurately what belongs, or does not belong, to 
each particular passion, — and thus eliminating its exclusive 
character and proper nature. 

Ehetoric. 

As the Speculative Sciences had been confounded under a 
vague notion of Dialectic, so had Ehetoric, in the ostentatious 
study of it prevalent before the time of Aristotle, drawn into its 
system the practical sciences of Politics and Ethics. Observa- 
tions had been accumulated on the mere accessories of the art ; 
but the proper business of the rhetorician — the inquiry into the 
argument itself of which a composition must consist — had been 
overlooked. Aristotle had therefore to dig a foundation for the 
fabric of a real science of Ehetoric. He had to clear away mis- 
conceptions ; to shew the data on which Ehetorical science 
must proceed, and the relative importance of its several parts. 

He commences, accordingly, with pointing out the nature 
of its connection both with Dialectical and Moral science. It is 
first and most directly connected with Dialectic, inasmuch as it 
is a general method of providing arguments on any subject 
whatever. As Dialectic examines and discusses the principles 
of various sciences, considering them in their relations as princi- 
ples in the abstract, and not as the principles of this or that 
science, and is so far equally conversant about all subjects ; so 
Ehetoric inquires generally into the nature of the principles of 
Persuasion, and therefore is also of equal application to the 
various subjects of human thought. In the discussion of these 
abstract principles under the head of Dialectic, it is found that 
they are referable to two general classes — that they are either 
probabilities or necessary truths. And Aristotle, accordingly, 
after having explained the nature of Syllogism, or the more 
general connection of principles, which is independent of their 
peculiar nature, proceeds to investigate the nature of deductions 
as drawn from necessary principles or from probabilities. The 



EFFICIENT PHILOSOPHY. 107 

consideration of this distinction anticipates in some measure 
the province of Ehetoric, touching on the point, as has been 
observed, in which Ehetoric differs from Logic strictly so called. 
As the science of eloquence, its office is to speculate on the effect 
of different principles in producing persuasion, ^and not simply 
on their abstract relations ; and therefore it must examine the 
force of arguments, whether probable or necessary, in their in- 
fluence both on the judgment and the will. Principles, in short, 
as they are grounds of Credibility, and not as they enter into a 
reasoning process, constitute its proper subject. In this respect 
it coincides with a part of the ancient Dialectic. But it differs, 
again, from Dialectic, inasmuch as it is connected also with 
Moral Science. In Dialectic the force of man's moral nature 
on his opinions is not considered. Will such or such a con- 
clusion result from such or such arguments, according to the 
procedure of the human intellect in forming its judgments ? 
is the whole inquiry of Dialectic. But Ehetoric further con- 
siders, what is the practical force of such and such arguments ? 
what effect are they found to have in actual experience ? — not 
according to their mere speculative truth, but as acting on the 
complex nature of man. Practically, it is found that questions 
are not examined on their positive merit as simple questions of 
truth, but with feelings and sentiments thwarting or aiding the 
discernments of the intellect. Here, then, is opened a wide field 
for a philosophical inquiry of a peculiar character, distinct from 
Dialectic, and yet strictly founded on it, and implying it through- 
out, as well as of the highest importance in order to the success 
of truth in the world. This inquiry is what Aristotle institutes 
under the head of Ehetoric. 

He has evinced the most perfect comprehension of the 
nature of the science which he had undertaken to develop, in 
holding it, as he does, in exact balance between the two sciences 
of Dialectic and Morals with which it is associated. There is 
much of logical matter in the course of his inquiry, and still 
more of ethical. But he never suffers us to forget that we are 
not examining those sciences in themselves under the head of 



108 ARISTOTLE. 

Ehetoric, but in their relations to a science compounded of both. 
He would have the rhetorician versed in Dialectic, and deeply 
acquainted with Human nature. But he is intent on shewing 
how he is to apply his knowledge of both these sciences to the 
proper business of Ehetoric- — the influence on the heart and 
mind of the persons addressed. It is not a vague and popular 
knowledge of those sciences which he is inculcating throughout, 
but a popular application of authentic principles drawn from 
them both, and a popular application founded on a deep philo- 
sophy of Human nature. 

This philosophy consists in an investigation of the kinds of 
Evidence by which the minds of men are commonly swayed in 
accepting any conclusion proposed to them, and of those princi- 
ples of their moral nature which generally induce belief. The 
whole, accordingly, is an inquiry into what is probable, or rather 
what is credible and persuasive, to a being so constituted as man. 

Ehetoric, then, does not consider arguments as they are 
abstractedly necessary or probable. Such arguments appeal to 
the intellect alone ; and the result from such is, either a full 
conviction, or a presumption of some point in question. 
Ehetoric, on the other hand, looks to probability in the result. 
Whether an argument be necessary or probable in principle, is 
comparatively of no consequence to the rhetorician, provided it 
be persuasive in its effect He has to consider, therefore, only a 
probability of this kind — on what grounds men commonly 
believe an argument to be just, or are influenced by any state- 
ment. 1 Now men are found to receive arguments as conclusive 
on two different grounds — from considering them either as 
logically sound, deducible from admitted principles, or as co- 
incident with some previous observation or fact. Hence the 
distinction between probability and likelihood ; probability 
denoting conclusions proved by some reason alleged ; likelihood 

1 When it is asserted, that Dialectic thing- is, but what will give a persuasion 

is concerned about truth, and Rhetoric or belief that it is. At the same time, 

about opinion, this must be understood those principles on which such a per- 

to mean that Rhetoric has for its object suasion depends, are real truths about 

to discover, not what any particular which the science is conversant. 



EFFICIENT PHILOSOPHY. 109 

denoting conclusions grounded on matter of fact, the conclusion 
being something like what has been experienced. Aristotle dis- 
tinguishes these two kinds of rhetorical arguments as proba- 
bilities, tixora, and signs, cm^a. The precise nature of the 
distinction he explains more fully in his Analytics. 1 In his 
Rhetoric he directs our attention rather to those practical 
forms which the two classes assume in Enthymemes and 
Examples ; Enthymemes being probable arguments which state 
a conclusion with the reason of it, but without the formality 
of a syllogism ; such as occur in familiar use ; Examples, argu- 
ments in which a conclusion is drawn from particular facts or 
observations ; or inductions in a popular form, inferences from 
one particular to another like it, both of which fall under the 
same general principle. 

He points out, accordingly, the force and propriety of Enthy- 
memes and Examples, as modes of producing conviction, both 
in themselves, and relatively to each other, according to the 
subjects in which they may be employed. And as Enthymemes 
are the more comprehensive head — for, in fact, every argument 
from Example is in principle an Enthymeme, the example cited 
being the reason of the conclusion, — he dwells more explicitly 
on the nature of Enthymemes. These he distinguishes in respect 
of the principles from which they are drawn. These principles 
may be, 1. Entirely abstract, unconnected with any particular 
subject, and equally common to all subjects ; or, 2. They may 
belong to particular subjects, and the sciences of those subjects. 
Instances of the former class, called by the general name of 
rowoi, Topics, or common-places, are conclusions of the possibility 
of anything from abstract considerations of possibility, — of the 
existence of anything from the existence of that which implies 
it more or less, etc. Instances of the latter, uh% or specific 
Topics, are conclusions drawn from the nature of human actions, 
or from some principle of government or commerce, or whatever 
it may be to which a speaker or writer has occasion to refer. 
The matter of proof, or the grounds of Credibility in them- 

1 Anal. Prior, ii. cap. 29 ; Rhet. ad Alex. cap. 9, 13, 15. 



110 AKISTOTLE. 

selves being obtained, it comes, in the next place, to be con- 
sidered how this proof is acted on and modified in the result by 
the complex nature of man, on whom the result is to be produced. 
The subjects, then, to which Ehetoric properly applies, are those 
in which there is some opening for the action of the moral feel- 
ings. In questions of pure science, the intellectual powers alone 
are concerned. There is no personal application to the indi- 
vidual ; no reference to his own experience for the proof of the 
principles, as is the case with all inquiries involving human 
conduct ; where a fairness of judgment is as much required in 
order to an acknowledgment of the principles, as a clearness of 
intellect. Whatever may be the nature of a mathematical 
enunciation or a fact in chemistry, when it is once stated and 
proved, there is no question whether we approve or disapprove 
it. Its truth is suffered to rest on its proper footing. But a 
conclusion respecting our own nature, or involving our own con- 
duct, immediately calls all our moral principles to the survey of it. 
Our hopes, and fears, and wishes, are heard pleading for or 
against it. Here, then, is the proper province of the rhetorician. 
He is to furnish principles to the advocate by whom the case is 
to be laid before these internal judges ; to suggest how to pre- 
pare the evidence for their reception ; and by his knowledge of 
their former judgments, to enable him to present the truth 
before them in such form, that it may obtain a fair hearing, and 
be affirmed in their decisions. 

For the convenient arrangement of rhetorical arguments, 
Aristotle divides Ehetoric into three different kinds, according to 
the different occasions on which it was employed among the 
Greeks : — 1. The Deliberative, or its use in political debates ; 
2. The Judicial, or its use in popular assemblies, as those of 
Athens, in which the people collectively exercised the judicial 
functions ; 3. The Epideictic, or, Demonstrative, or its use in 
panegyric and invective, when the orator had to gratify his 
hearers by the display of eloquence, as in the panegyrical and 
funeral orations among the Greeks. 1 

1 Met. i. cap. 3, etc. ; Rhet. ad Alex. cap. 2-6, 35-38. 



EFFICIENT PHILOSOPHY. Ill 

In these several heads of inquiry he has given an admirable 
account of -the various motives by which mankind at large are 
commonly actuated, and of the objects in their conduct and 
opinions which they pursue. 

And here we should notice the peculiar complexion which 
the Happiness and the Virtue, described in this part of his philo- 
sophy, assume. He is led to speak of Happiness 1 as the great 
object of human desires— the point from which all views of 
expediency obtain their colouring. Here, however, he is not 
concerned to illustrate that Happiness to which the aim of man- 
kind should he directed, but that which is in fact sought in the 
world as it is. He therefore portrays those various forms with 
which self-love commonly invests the idea of happiness. For it 
is evidently more to the purpose of the orator, whose object is to 
carry his point, to conform his arguments to the views enter- 
tained by his hearers, however theoretically false, than to a more 
just theory, of which they have no conception. Virtue, again, is 
here a law of Honour. 2 It is an appeal to those right feelings 
which exist in the nature of man, by which virtue is approved 
and vice disapproved. Independently, however, of discipline 
and cultivation, these feelings are not found in fact always duly 
exerted. There is ground, therefore, for a popular kind of 
Virtue, in a philosophical survey of those principles by which 
the human heart is commonly swayed in its decisions of right 
and wrong. This popular law of right is at least an approxima- 
tion to perfect virtue. It is an irregular and uncertain applica- 
tion of the criterion of Approbation, which belongs to true Virtue 
alone ; leading to a preference of the more ostentatious virtues 
to the less obviously praiseworthy ; and to the exaltation of 
some qualities merely specious, or even faulty, to the rank of 
virtues, through the want of discrimination and corruption of 
principle in the world. Thus Virtue becomes, in the popular 
view, a power of benefiting others, 3 rather than an internal habit 

1 Bhet. i. cap. 5. 2 Ibid, i. cap. 9. 

Ibid, i. cap. 9, 'A^sr?) o lari ftlv tyvXcCKTix'/i, xai 'Suva/at; ilt^yzrix'h vroXXav 
oov&fti;, w$ ooKit, Tooiirrixrt ct.ya.llwv kou ko.) /u,zya\iuv, x.cc) Travro/v T<g) Tuvra,. 



112 ARISTOTLE. 

of self-moderation. Men acquiesce in that general notion of it, 
under which it most strikes their attention, and calls forth their 
admiration. Such, then, is the kind of Virtue to which the 
orator must make his appeal. He cannot calculate on rinding 
the bulk of his hearers moral philosophers, or persons whose 
sentiments have been highly cultivated. He must therefore 
proceed on those broad principles which may be presumed to 
exist in the heart of every man though imperfectly cultivated. 
It is to these he must conform his arguments, if he would pro- 
duce that impression which he desires. 

Further, as the habits of thinking and feeling among men are 
found to be affected by peculiarities of circumstances, it is 
necessary for the orator to have studied also the varieties of 
human character, and to have reduced these to general principles 
for his practical direction. Aristotle, accordingly, has not lost 
sight of this point in his Ehetoric, but has shewn a keen obser- 
vation in the outlines which he has given of the effects of diffe- 
rent governments, different periods of life, different worldly 
fortunes, in modifying the human character. 

He had strongly condemned former rhetoricians for making 
the whole art consist of an appeal to the Passions. At the same 
time, he was aware that such an appeal was a necessary part of 
the orator's address ; and that no arguments, no merely intel- 
lectual proofs, could avail, independently of this. To overlook, 
indeed, the affections in arguments concerning human conduct, 
is to disregard the authorities to which the whole process of 
proof is ultimately addressed. Wherever evidence is not abso- 
lutely irresistible, and there is room for doubt — though the 
object be simply to induce belief — the hearer naturally proceeds 
in his analysis of the evidence, until he brings it home to him- 
self, and finds it issuing in something natural to his own 
character and feelings. This it is that at last determines the 
wavering balance. The philosophy of Ehetoric, therefore, re- 
quired some outlines to be given of these ultimate arbiters of all 
rhetorical questions. And we are indebted accordingly to his 
masterly view of the subject for an accurate and beautiful 



EFFICIENT PHILOSOPHY. 113 

delineation, in the course of this Treatise, of the leading Passions 
of Human Nature. Of its excellence as a specimen of the 
Inductive method of philosophizing mention has been already 
made. 

In treating both of the Virtues and of the Passions, Aristotle's 
view was to enable the orator, not only to recommend his argu- 
ments to the moral sentiments and feelings of an auditory, but 
to bring also to their support the natural and just prejudice from 
Authority. We involuntarily ascribe to one who appears in the 
character of an instructor, the advantages of superior knowledge 
and kind intentions. The prejudice in favour of Authority is 
thus reasonably founded on a respect for wisdom and virtue. It 
is important, then, to the orator to avail himself of this prejudice. 
There must be nothing to counteract, in those addressed, the 
natural tendency to believe the speaker. On the contrary, his 
whole address must conspire to this end. It must give the im- 
pression that he is a man of intellectual ability, as well as of 
right sentiments and feelings. Hence Aristotle deduced a dis- 
tinct class of rhetorical proofs under the head of, 1. Ethos, or 
character ; 2. The Pathos, or appeal to the passions ; and 3. The 
Demonstration, or Argumentative proof as such, constituting the 
two other heads. He thus shews, on the whole, how a speech 
may at once carry conviction, interest the feelings of the hearer, 
and give the weight of personal authority to the speaker. 1 

All such grounds of credibility and persuasiveness in a 
speech fall under the general head of Proofs, which Aristotle 
calls the Artificial, hnyyu — those which the Orator has to invent 
or originate for himself; on which he has to exercise his powers 
of observation and argument, in collecting the materials for his 
speech, as well as his skill in the use. and disposition of them, so 
as to produce that persuasion which is the effect sought. But 
besides this strictly Artificial head of Proofs, there is another, 
termed in opposition to these, urzyjoi, Inartificial — grounds of 
Argument, existing independently of the creative power of the 
Orator — which he finds to his hand, and has only to employ to 

1 Rhet. i. c. 2. 

I 



114 AEISTOTLE. 

his purpose. Such are enumerated by Aristotle under a five-fold 
division: — 1. Laws; 2. Witnesses; 3. Compacts; 4. Examination 
by Tortures ; 5. Oaths. 1 But whilst the former head of Artificial 
Proofs is applicable to Oratory, whether Deliberative, Judicial, or 
Epideictic, the head of Inartificial Proofs properly belongs to 
Judicial Oratory alone ; as the several particulars above indicated 
would seem to shew, at least according to the practice of Oratory 
among the Greeks. Each of these particular proofs then is 
briefly considered by Aristotle, and the mode in which it may 
be applied by the orator to the purpose for which he may be 
appealing to it, is distinctly pointed out. For instance, if the 
written law should be against him, he is to appeal from it to the 
unwritten law, the law of nature ; or if the written law should, 
on the contrary, be in his favour, he is to insist on its obligation ; 
and that, though it may be faulty, obedience to it is better than 
to accustom men to seek to be wise beyond it, and evade it. 
With respect to witnesses in general, he divides them into two 
kinds — ancient and recent: the ancient, are poets and other 
well-known authorities, touching the case in dispute ; the recent, 
opinions drawn from the judgments of eminent persons on the 
like cases; and he observes, that the orator may never want 
some available testimony, either against his adversary in the 
cause, or in his own favour; or if there be none bearing on the 
matter itself, at least, he may bring some as to character, to esta- 
blish his own, or impugn that of the adversary. Such, by way of 
specimen, are the practical observations furnished for the guidance 
of the orator, as to the mode of applying the Inartificial proofs. 

As Ehetoric, further, has for its object to enable the orator to 
make the best of his case and to influence his hearers that they 
may pronounce their judgment in his favour, we are to expect 
in a rhetorical treatise that arguments will be considered as good 
and available for this ultimate effect, which are, logically viewed, 
of a sophistical character and unsound. Such, for instance, as 
the following : — W T hen the conclusion does not actually follow 
from the premises, to assert it confidently as such, introducing 

1 Rliet. i. cc. 2, 15. 



EFFICIENT PHILOSOPHY. 115 

it thus, "therefore this is so, or not so;" when several particulars 
have been separately stated on their own grounds, to take them 
collectively, and draw some one conclusion as their common 
result : to argue again from that which is simply consequent on 
any thing, omitting the consideration as to hoiv it is consequent ; 
— or from that which is not the cause, as if it were the cause ; 
or from that what is probable in a particular sense to the pro- 
bable absolutely; or omitting, generally, all qualifications and 
reserves, and stating a conclusion universally. All such reason- 
ings are, according to the view of the Art premised by Aristotle, 
at the outset of his exposition of its principles, just, so far as they 
subserve the great end of the orator in every case — which is 
Persuasion. And he rests his defence of the use of them on the 
broad ground, that the orator ought to see both the real and the 
apparent persuasive ; as the dialectician ought to see the real and 
apparent syllogism ; not that he is to use his acquaintance with 
the principles in order to persuade to what is bad ; but that when 
others use them for a bad purpose, he may be able to refute 
them. 1 

This at the same time implies, that where a good end is in 
the design of the orator, even such arguments as though not 
logically valid are yet effective in inducing belief, are strictly 
within his province. And the difference of his case from that 
of the sophist appears to be, that, in the discussion of the dialec- 
tician, truth is the object ; which precludes the employment of 
sophistical arguments though he must have studied them that 
he may be able to refute them : whereas the end of the orator 
is not truth in the abstract, but the persuasive or credible ; and 
though he is forbidden from using his skill for an evil object, he 
seems justified, by the very nature of his art, in setting forth his 
statements and arguments in every form which may recommend 
them to the acceptance of his hearers. 2 

In the popular views of Rhetorical science, the subjects of 

1 Hhet. ii. C. 24 : i. C. 1 . ftiv" oh yap o*t7 <ra tpaZXa, vrnfaiv' aAX' 

2 Ibid, 1 C. 1. "ET/ Tt TCCVBIVTICC 0*t7 'IvCf. (JL'ATi Xavtiavv tus ''-X ll i KX ' ' 0<7ru 't 

ovvairSai Tiifeiv, y.aia.'Xip xai sv to7$ a.X'Kov %paftivou rots Xoyots ahrois f^h 
ffuWcyiffftoT;' oh% oVw? tt(/.<p'o<ripu Tpurrui- dixalws, Xvnv '(%cofx.iv. 



116 ARISTOTLE. 

style and method engross an undue importance. We are thus 
led to think that eloquence consists in the skilful use of the 
ornaments of style, in the flow of periods, and the structure of a 
composition advantageously distributing its lights and shades. 
The attention is diverted from the material itself of eloquence, 
the strong framework of argument, without which no eloquence 
can subsist. Aristotle, in proceeding to the discussion of style, 
has cautiously maintained the subordination of this part of 
Ehetoric to the proper business of the art — Persuasion ; treating 
it as a necessary condescension to the weakness of the hearers. 
If, however, the manner in which we express our thoughts may 
contribute to the reception of our assertions and arguments, and 
it be allowed that the principles of Taste are real parts of the 
human constitution — the consideration of style must necessarily 
enter into a philosophical system of Ehetoric. The effect of 
the style is part of the whole result of the composition on the 
mind of the hearers, and is so far, therefore, an ingredient 
in that Probability or Credibility about which Ehetoric is con- 
versant. 

In conformity with this view of the importance of style, 
Aristotle lays down perspicuity as the great principle of good 
composition. It is with him "the virtue of style." 1 All the 
ornaments of language, whether from the structure of periods, or 
from -the various modes of thought, by which a point, a propriety, 
or a dignity, or an animation, is imparted to a subject, are 
explained in reference to this fundamental law. 

Nor has he left unconsidered the arrangement of the parts of 
a speech ; though this also was in his opinion scarcely a legiti- 
mate portion of the art. Former rhetoricians had encumbered 
their systems with numerous artificial divisions, giving precise 
rules for the composition of each distinct head. Aristotle's 
more exact method admits no other divisions than the Proposition 
and the Proof ; the former, founded on the necessity of stating 
the subject of discussion ; the latter, on the necessity of proving 
the point stated : though he afterwards allows the convenience 

1 Bhet. iii. 2. Poetic, c. 22. 



EFFICIENT PHILOSOPHY. 117 

of a fourfold division into, 1. The Proem or Introduction; 
2. The Proposition ; 3. The Proof ; 4. The Epilogue or Perora- 
tion. 

The subject of Delivery, rh irspi H« v<7r6xpiG/v } did not escape his 
notice : but nothing had been effected by previous writers in 
this department of Ehetoric. And though he admits that the 
attention to the mode of Delivery might serve to recommend a 
speech, it is only, he observes, through the depraved taste of the 
people ; as, in the contests of the drama, the poets who were 
actors, carried off the prizes ; and in the correct view of the art 
of the orator it was a vain and superfluous addition. 1 

So deeply and fully has the science of Ehetoric been con- 
sidered by Aristotle. His treatise on the subject, the Ehetoric, in 
three books, addressed to his disciple Theodectes, and his Xico- 
machean Ethics, are perhaps the most perfect specimens of syste- 
matic moral sciences extant in ancient or modern literature. For 
extent and variety of matter, the Rhetoric may be ranked even 
above the Ethics. It has been justly characterized as " a maga- 
zine of intellectual riches. Xothing is left untouched," says one 
who could well appreciate the value of the work, "on which 
Ehetoric, in all its branches, has any bearing. His principles 
are the result of extensive original induction. He sought them, if 
ever man did seek them, in the living pattern of the human heart. 
All the recesses and windings of that hidden region he has 
explored ; all its caprices and affections — whatever tends to 
excite, to ruffle, to amuse, to gratify, or to offend it — have been 
carefully examined. The reason of these phenomena is demon- 
strated ; the method of creating them is explained. The whole 
is a text-book of human feeling ; a storehouse of taste ; an 
exemplar of condensed and accurate, but uniformly clear and 
candid, reasoning." 2 It is professedly adapted to the business 
of the orator ; that being the original occasion of an Art of 
Ehetoric. But it is in fact a body of precepts for good writing ; 

1 Rhet. iii. c. 1. K«< }>okh QopriKiv daff, in his Defence of the Studies of 
iIvks, Kuy.u>i ucrcka.f/.S'x.vcf^Diov. Oxford, p. 27. 

2 Tlie late Bishop Coplcston of Llan- 



118 ARISTOTLE. 

furnishing authentic principles of criticism in every department 
of prose composition. His smaller Treatise in one book, entitled 
The Rhetoric to Alexander, the genuineness of which is question- 
able, is more strictly a science of political eloquence ; being 
written, as the introductory address would intimate, in obedience 
to the King Alexander, who had requested a work of that 
description. 1 The same philosophical views of eloquence may 
be traced in this work ; but more popularly set forth, with less 
of technical precision, and more of illustration from examples. 

Poetics. 

No work of Aristotle has been more justly estimated, in 
general opinion, — as none perhaps is so generally known, — than 
the fragment which has survived to us under the name of his 
Poetics. Imperfect as it is, it has been uniformly regarded as the 
great authority of the laws of criticism in poetry ; subsequent 
writers having only extended and illustrated the principles laid 
down in it. The excellence of this little work, which is only 
one book of the three of which the whole Treatise is said to have 
consisted, shews how much we have to regret the entire loss of 
his other works on the same subject. The treatises On Tragedies 
and On Poets, mentioned in the catalogue of Laertius, probably 
contained much valuable information concerning Greek writers, 
whose works, perhaps whose names in some instances, have not 
been transmitted to us. 

That portion which time has spared of the Poetics, is almost 
exclusively confined to the consideration of dramatic poetry. 
But the philosopher, with his usual depth and reach of thought, 
has here laid a broad foundation of principles applicable to the 
whole subject. He derives the nature of Poetry in general from 
the principle of Imitation inherent in man. Two natural causes, 

1 Bhet. ad Alex. c. 1. Quintilian excogitavit in Gryllo. He considers 

(Instit. Orat. ii. c. 17) speaks of a rhe- the Rhet. ad Alexandrum to have been 

torical work of Aristotle, entitled Gryl- the work of Anaximenes of Larapsacus, 

lus. Aristoteles, nt solet, quserendi gra- a contemporary of Aristotle, 
tia, qnsedam subtilitatis suae argumenta 



EFFICIENT PHILOSOPHY. 119 

lie says, appear to have originated Poetry ; the natural power 
of imitation, — and the pleasure which all men take in imitation, 
that is, in recognizing likenesses between distinct objects. These 
two causes thus stated by him are in fact but one principle ; the 
pleasure resulting from imitation being the principle itself of 
imitation, viewed in its tendency or proper effect, the production 
of pleasure : though, in the language of his philosophy, the first 
would be the motive cause, the second the final. The science 
then termed Poetics, is that which treats of the method by which 
the natural principle of Imitation obtains its proper and full 
expression ; or a collection of observations on the mode by which 
pleasure is produced in imitations of which language is the 
instrument. Hence the business of the Poet is stated by Aris- 
totle to consist in representing things, " not as they have been, 
but as tney ought to be ;" and therefore is described by him as 
of a more philosophical and excellent nature than that of the 
historian. 1 The pleasure of Imitation will not be answered, 
unless a likeness be recognized between the objects and events 
described, and the objects and events observed in the general 
course of nature. Otherwise it will be a mere pleasure in the 
execution, or in some circumstance of the work. The poet, 
therefore, in order to accomplish the end of his art, must possess 
a philosophical power of observation. He must have compared 
objects and events, and detected points of resemblance, and thus 
formed for himself general principles on which he may proceed 
to model his ideal world. At the same time he differs from the 
philosopher much in the same way in which the orator differs 
from the dialectician. He has not to consider what is abstrac- 
tedly like in things, but what will be viewed and felt as like in 
its effect on the sentiments and feelings of men. Therefore it is 
that his creations are clothed with a beauty and loveliness sur- 
passing nature. The resemblances which he shadows out par- 
take of those hues, which the imagination, and the feelings, and 
every beautiful and noble sentiment of the heart of man, reflect 
upon them. 2 

1 Poet, c. 9. 2 Poetic, c. 4, 9, 25. 



120 ARISTOTLE. 

These fundamental notions of the art pervade the system of 
Aristotle's Poetics, though, from the briefness of the work in its 
present imperfect state, they are by no means fully developed 
in it. In the work, indeed, as it now is, the basis of the poetic 
imitation — the actions, passions, and manners of which a poem 
is descriptive — are exclusively considered ; and we have no 
inquiry, as in the Ehetoric, into the principles of Human nature 
by which the pleasure resulting from the imitation is modified in 
its effect. From this circumstance, as well as from his accounting 
for the pleasure of poetry on the ground of a natural delight 
in tracing out resemblances, Aristotle has been sometimes thought 
to have placed the excellence of a poem in the mechanism of its 
story, 1 and to have neglected altogether the intrinsic poetry of 
thought and expression. But we shall not do justice to the 
comprehensiveness of his views, if we estimate them by the 
limits of the present work. He seems here to have premised 
only, what ought naturally to occupy the first place in a philo- 
sophical system of the art. 

It must be remembered, also, that Greek Poetry was essen- 
tially dramatic. It was expressly composed with a view to 
public recitation or exhibition ; and in poetry of this kind the 
character of the incidents would hold a much greater importance 
than in poetry intended chiefly to be read. The incidents would 
here hold a place analogous to the thoughts and expressions of 
the poem submitted to the contemplative study of a reader. This 
may further account for Aristotle's laying so much stress on the 
interest of the plot in Tragedy. 

The definition of Tragedy given by Aristotle is remarkable, 
as savouring more of the spirit of Plato's philosophy than of his 
own. Describing its nature as it differs from Epic poetry and 
from Comedy, he farther characterizes it as, " by means of pity 
and fear, accomplishing the purification of such passions." The 

1 Poetic, c. 6, ugx,*! fith ovv xa.) olov speaks of " purification" as an effect of 
■^v%h o f/,v6os tyis r^ay unices. music. There he promises to explain 

2 Ibid., c. 6, S< \\iou xut tp'o&ou rti^ui- his meaning when he comes to treat of 
vovffa. rhv ruv roiovrcdv tfxCrtfAoiruv xci0a.gtT<v. poetry ; but no explanation occurs in the 
So, again, in his Politics, viii. 7, he Foetics. 



EFFICIENT PHILOSOPHY. 121 

purification of the soul was the object to which Plato directed 
the noble enthusiasm of his philosophy. By converse with the 
ideas of the intellectual world, he would have the soul disen- 
chanted of the spells which bound it to sensible objects, and 
cleansed of the impurities of its earthly associations. Aristotle's 
description of the effect designed in tragedy, applies this doctrine 
to the particular emotions of the soul produced by pity and fear. 
His idea appears to be, that Tragedy, by presenting the objects 
of those passions, without the grossness and the violence with 
which they are attended in actual life, teaches us to feel the 
passions in that degree only in which an impartial spectator can 
sympathize with us. By familiarity with these pure abstractions 
— the pure philosophy of the passions so called forth — a moral 
effect is worked on the heart ; the mimic occasions on which it 
is rightly exercised serving as a real discipline of purification. 
The question, on what the peculiar pleasure of Tragic incident 
depends, is not distinctly considered by Aristotle. But it may 
be accounted for on his principles ; from the view already given 
of the purification effected by tragedy, and that which he else- 
where gives of pleasure as the result of every affection rightly 
exerted. That moderation of the passions of pity and fear which 
tragedy has for its aim, is that due exertion of them to which 
pleasure has been attached by Nature. There is nothing then to 
disturb or interfere with the pleasurable emotion ; as happens 
when those passions are excited in the real occasions of life. 



122 AKISTOTLE. 

PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY. 

ETHICS. 

It has been already observed, that under trie head of Prac- 
tical Philosophy, Aristotle treats of those sciences which are 
conversant about the goods of human life. According to this 
view, the practical sciences are reducible to two : 1. Ethics ; by 
which man is furnished with the principles belonging to his 
natural good as man : 2. Politics ; which inquires into the prin- 
ciples on which the constitution of Societies may be made sub- 
servient to the same end. Economics ought perhaps to be stated 
as a third branch of science under this head. But in the view 
of Ancient Philosophy, it naturally falls under Politics ; inas- 
much as it strictly means the regulation of families ; the family 
being considered as the commencement or element of the associa- 
tion of men in cities and states. 1 

In taking a review of Aristotle's Ethical system, it would be 
injustice to the philosopher to withhold the expression of 
admiration of the real wisdom displayed by him in this depart- 
ment of science. We are little aware, living as we do in the 
sunshine of gospel truth, what a reach of thought it required, in 
those times, to see the science of Ethics in its proper light, as a 
discipline of human character in order to human happiness. 
The ethical writings of Aristotle, composed amidst the darkness 
of heathen superstition, abound with pure and just sentiments. 
Instead of depressing man to the standard of the existing 
depraved opinions and manners, they tend to elevate him to the 
perfection of his nature. They may indeed be studied, not only 
as an exercise of the intellect, but as a discipline of improvement 
of the heart ; so much is there in them of sound practical obser- 
vation on human nature. They were it seems the first writings 

1 Tkeophrastus is probably the author book, indeed, does not pretend to be 

of the first book of the treatise of Eco- more than a restoration of the Greek 

nomics, edited among the works of Aris- text from a Latin translation. The 

totle (Niebuhr's Hist, of Home, Transl., second book is acknowledged to be 

vol. i., p. 15). The latter part of that spurious. 



PEACT1CAL PHILOSOPHY. 123 

of a didactic character, in which the subject of Morals was 
treated systematically ; those of the Pythagoreans which pre- 
ceded them being only of a preceptive and hortatory character. 
They are directed, it must be allowed, solely to the improvement 
of man in this present life. But so just are the principles on 
which he builds that improvement, that we may readily extend 
them to those higher views of our nature and condition to which 
our eyes, by the light of Divine Eevelation, have been opened. 
And no greater praise can be given to a work of heathen morality 
than to say, as may with truth be said of the Ethical writings of 
Aristotle, that they contain nothing which a Christian may dis- 
pense with, no precept of life which is not an element of the 
Christian character; and that they only fail in elevating the 
heart and the mind to objects which it needed Divine Wisdom 
to reveal, and a Divine Example to realize to the life. 

He has left three principal treatises in this department of 
Philosophy, familiarly known by these names : — 1. The Nico- 
machean Ethics, or Ethics addressed to his son Mcomachus, in 
ten books j 1 2. The Magna Moralia, in two books ; 3. The Eude- 
mian Ethics, or Ethics addressed to Eudemus, in seven books ; 
besides a short popular tract (probably a summary by another 
hand), On the Virtues and Vices. The Nicomachean Ethics 
exhibits the most formal and complete development of his 
theory, and is the work on which his fame as a Moral philosopher 
is chiefly rested. The other treatises are entirely coincident with 
this in the views taken of the subjects discussed, and often coin- 
cident also in whole passages. 

It is well known with what eager but unprofitable subtilty 
the inquiry into the Chief Good was prosecuted by the Greek 
philosophers. The speculation proceeded from a misapprehen- 
sion of the nature of Moral Philosophy. They thought, consis- 
tently with their method in Physics, that, as every action of 
human life appeared the pursuit of good, there must be some one 

1 His son Nicomachus has been re- v. 5) is inclined to allow him this credit, 
presented as the author of some of the but without any good reason, 
books of this treatise. Cicero (De Fin. 



124 ARISTOTLE. 

common principle of good, the constituent of the moral nature of 
Actions. Again, as the object pursued when attained becomes 
an end in which the action rests, occasion was given for inquiry 
into the Ends of actions, and comparing them, and finding out 
the ultimate End. Hence they were busied in exploring the 
several objects of human pursuit, and drawing conclusions as to 
their relative goodness and finality in the order of pursuit. It is 
easy to see what a field for ingenuity was opened in determining 
the point where the two notions of the Best and the Final 
coincided ; and in this consisted the determination of the 
Summum, Bonum, or Chief Good. 

Now Aristotle examined human Actions with a more philo- 
sophical eye. He readily saw through the vain realism of those 
speculations which supposed either some one Idea of Good, or 
some common quality of good to exist in everything that was 
called good. 1 He was aware, also, that when the " ends " of 
action were spoken of, it was not with reference to some ulterior 
object in the distance, as was implied in all those theories which 
laid down a speculative definition of the Chief Good ; but that it 
was the very nature of a Moral Action, to be in itself an End. 2 
Hence he turned aside from that track of inquiry which had misled 
his predecessors, with the exception of Socrates, and struck out for 
nimself a new path of Moral Science. He has thrown his pre- 
liminary views, indeed, into a form resembling that of the specu- 
lative moralists, in unconscious deference to the prejudices of 
the method in which he had been trained. Thus he sets out in 
his Nicomachean Ethics with a sketch of the Chief Good as the 
final and perfect end of all Actions. And this may give the 
idea, that in reading this work we are examining a system of 
the same kind with the Greek Moral Philosophy in general — a 
view of it which Cicero 3 appears to have taken ; since he speaks 
of Aristotle's having united two objects as together making up 
the Chief Good of man. On looking, however, closely into his 

1 Eth. Nic. i. c. 6; Mag. Mor. i. c. contendimus, ut officii fructus sit ipsum 
1,2. officium." 

2 Ibid. vi. c. 2, 5, x. c. 6 ; Polit. vii. 3 De Fin. ii. c. 6; see also Euseb. 
c. 3, 13 ; Cicero de Fin. ii. c. 22, " Id Preep. Evang. xv. c. 3 and 4. 



PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY. 125 

actual investigation, we find it very different in its pursuit ; the 
agreement being only in the technical form of the argument. 

The Chief Good 1 which he is intent on establishing is, the 
principle or general Nature of Actions as such. He investigates, 
that is, the law according to which Actions attain the good 
which is their object ; and which, as being the end really 
designed in all Actions, whatever may be the immediate parti- 
cular end sought in each, is the great final cause of all — the 
End of ends. He speaks of Moral virtue as conversant about 
Affections and Actions, vegi wafy xat ngd&ig. 2 In strictness, 
however, Actions, or Affections as they are exerted in act, are 
the only proper subject of Ethics; which is conversant about 
Affections, inasmuch as Affections are implied in Actions. 
Actions are Affections exerted towards some object, and compre- 
hend, accordingly, both external and internal acts, — as well 
those which are only known to the conscience of the agent, as 
those which are open to the observation of men. An Action, 
then, according to Aristotle, is good, in which an Affection 
attains its object ; and, in that case, the Action itself may be 
regarded as a riXog or End; the Affection being realized, com- 
pleted, satisfied, in it. Accordingly, it may be inquired, how the 
Affections really obtain their objects, when exerted towards them, 
or in action; or what constitutes an Action an End. But this 
is a very different inquiry from one that, by comparison of 
particular objects, searches after some definite sole object of 
pursuit. In this it is presupposed, that every object of a 
natural Affection is an ultimate end, or an object in which that 
Affection, whatever it may be, when exerted rests, as in its 
natural good. It is sought, then, to ascertain how this is so ; 
what that principle is, by which any Action whatever is really a 
Good in itself and an End. Such a principle is analogous to 
the Chief Good of the speculative moralists ; because it exhibits 
Actions in that point of view in which their goodness consists, or 
in which they accomplish that good towards which the Affec- 

1 Laertius mentions, in the Catalogue Tuyahv, in three books, 
of Aristotle's writings, a treatise, vn(i 2 Eth. Nic. ii. c. 3, 6, 9,' etc. 



126 ARISTOTLE. . 

tions naturally tend. But it differs, so far as it restricts the 
notion of the Chief Good to no one distinct class of objects. It 
is simply a general account of the right constitution of man's 
moral nature exemplified in the multitude and variety of indivi- 
dual instances of Actions. As Newton does not inquire what 
Gravity is, but develops the law by which it acts ; so Aristotle 
does not give an abstract notion of the Chief Good, but explores 
the principle by which it is realized in human life. He thus 
obtains a view of it independent of any speculative opinions 
concerning the Chief Good or Happiness of man. His theory 
leaves the notion of Happiness entirely relative. 1 The philo- 
sopher and the uneducated, the rich and the poor, the barbarian 
and the civilized, each individual, in short, under whatever 
modifications of human life he may be conceived to exist, must, 
so far as he obtains the good attached to the exertion of an 
Affection, or performs a perfect Action, exemplify that law, or 
ultimate principle, which constitutes an Action a perfect Action, 
or Good. 

His several treatises of Ethics consist of a development of 
this his characteristic view of human good. He had observed 
how mankind, through the force of passion and evil habits, 
mistake and pervert their proper goods. Ethical philosophy, he 
thought, might be applied to correct this misapprehension of 
men — to reform this perversion. The force of sound practical 
instruction, at least, might be tried. He wished therefore to 
propose to their view the real goods intended for them by the 
constitution of their nature, and to call the attention of each 
individual to the pursuit of these in his own particular case. 
His design throughout accordingly is, to direct the principles of 
man's moral nature towards their proper objects in such a way 
that they may rest in these objects as ends, and thus attain the 
proper good of man. When all the principles are so regulated 

1 The observations of Paley on " Hu- one notion of happiness common to all 

man Happiness " ( Mor. and Pol. Philo- men and all states of life ; and that con- 

sophy, B. i. ch. 6) are an excellent sequently it is vain to attempt to define 

illustration of Aristotle's Theory, — the notion of happiness, 
shewing- as they do, that there is no 



PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY. 127 

that this effect takes place in each, the collective result is, in 
such a case, Happiness, or the entire and consummate Good of 
man. Whence he takes occasion to describe Happiness in 
general terms, as "Energy of Soul," -^vyjns ivsgysia, 1 or "the 
Powers of the Soul exerted in act " " according to Virtue," or, if 
there are several virtues, " according to that which is best and 
most perfect." The mode of description is drawn from his 
physical philosophy. It is founded on a notion of some intrinsic 
power in the soul, working like the operations of the natural 
world. His theory of Happiness, then, contemplates this pro- 
cess of the soul at its termination, where the proper nature of 
the Soul as an Active Principle is fully developed. The truth 
is, we have then a general fact, representing the result in all 
particular instances in which an Affection is found properly and 
effectually exerted in act. He takes, indeed, into his estimate of 
the Chief Good, the effect of the circumstances of the world on 
the virtuous exercise of the powers of the Soul; adding to his 
description the condition of "a perfect life," 2 — or an adequate 
duration of life and adequate opportunities, — for the develop- 
ment of the moral principles. This, however, is but to assert, 
that the law by which man attains the Happiness of his nature, 
must, in order to be judged of truly, be contemplated in its 
tendency — in the effect that it would realize, if it acted freely, 
without impediment from the world. To think that external 
goods are causes of happiness, he says, is like imputing the 
excellence of the music to the lyre rather than to the art of the 
musician. Prosperity, he also observes, has its limit in reference 
to happiness, since it may be excessive, and in that case would be 
an impediment to happiness. 3 This necessary qualification of 
the expression in his sketch of the Chief Good, gives the appear- 
ance of his including prosperity to a certain extent as a constituent 
of the Good. Whereas in this point, as well as in the whole 
form of his inquiry into the Chief Good, he is only following the 

1 Etli. Nic. i. 7. 3 Ibid, i. c. 7, vii. 13, x. c. 8 ; Eudem. 

2 Ibid, lv (Ztu nX'Ju ; x. 7, Xol^ouco. vi. c. 13; Polit. vii. 1 and 13, iv. 11. 



128 ARISTOTLE. 

abstract method of Ancient Philosophy. In reality he is pur- 
suing a course of investigation strictly inductive. The terms 
themselves, "a perfect life," carry on the idea of the soul's 
working out its perfection ; in which process the perfection of its 
physical existence would necessarily constitute a part. 

Thus, too, the notion of Pleasure, considered as an abstract 
good, is distinctly examined in his Ethics. 1 The practice of 
Ancient Philosophy obtruded the question on his notice ; 
whether Pleasure was to be identified with happiness, or was to 
be regarded as an evil. He accordingly formally discusses it ; 
refuting the existing opinions on the subject, and establishing, 
that pleasure is a good, so far as it necessarily accompanies the 
exercise of every natural principle ; and consequently, that the 
highest pleasures are attached to the exercise of the highest 
principles. The discussion itself is thrown into a form highly 
abstruse and speculative. But the conclusion at which he 
arrives is entirely practical, and of the greatest importance in 
order to a just theory of Virtue. It amounts to this, that the 
mere gratification of every natural Affection, by its exertion in 
action, is not to be distinctly proposed and aimed at as the end 
of that Affection. This would be to grasp at the result, and 
neglect the means in order to it. It may be illustrated thus : 
Suppose, in travelling, some place were pointed out to us in the 
distance. We may imagine that we shall arrive at it by making- 
it our immediate object, and shaping our course directly towards 
it. But such a course might lead into insuperable difficulties ; 
whereas by going along the road leading to it, though circuitous 
and indirect, it will be safely and surely reached. For, the 
gratification is, as explained by him, the mere result of the 
adaptation of the affection to its object, — something accruing 
and consequent on the attainment of the object, — not the object 
itself. It is the completion of the process of Nature involved 
in an Action. The attainment, therefore, of the highest pleasure 
attached to our nature, presupposes that the perfect work of 
Virtue has been performed, in adjusting the Moral and Intel- 

1 Eth. Nic. vii. c. 11-14, x. c. 1-5, i. 8; Mag. Mor. ii. c. 7. 



PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY. 129 

lectual Principles to their objects. Pleasure, accordingly, is 
defined by him, in his Rhetoric?- physically, as "a kind of 
motion of the soul, and the bringing it into that full and per- 
ceptible state which is its proper nature." 

In proceeding to expand this outline, or "type" as he calls 
it, of his Ethical system, Ar*sfo)tle appears to have adopted the 
language of the Pythagoreans, "according to which Virtue was 
defined a "Disposition or Habitude of Propriety ;" or that state 
of man's moral nature in which all the Affections are in their 
due measure and proportion. Analyzing the moral principles 
into, 1. Affections, 2. Powers, and, 3. Dispositions, he rejects the 
first two classes of principles as inadequate to the production of 
Virtue ; and directs attention to the Dispositions as its proper 
seat. He observed that the Dispositions were subject to modi- 
fication by custom or habit, — that a moral character did not 
precede, but resulted from, moral actions ; and that a character 
so formed alone enabled one to act morally. As it was thus 
evident that virtuous habits were the bond of connection between 
virtuous action and virtuous principle in the agent, he con- 
cluded, that the principle by which the soul " energized," — by 
which its Affections were perfectly exerted in act, — was in its 
general nature, a Disposition, or Habitude, influencing the 
Choice. 

He had observed also, that in every instance in which Good 
resulted from the exercise of the Affections, due regard was had 
to the person of the Agent, to the occasion, to the matter in 
hand, to the persons respected in the action, to the purpose, etc. ; 
that thus, the virtuous character consisted in its power of due 
adjustment to all the circumstances of the case in every action. 
On the ground, then, of this general fact, he further concluded 
the nature of Virtue to consist " in a mean relatively to our- 
selves," — relatively, that is, to the individual agent in each 
instance. 2 The abstract mode of expression is a continuation of 
the same physical notion under which his theory of the Chief 

1 Rhet. i. n. 

Eth. NlC. il. 6, tP^s "pr^oai^irtxh, lv f^arornri oZffat. <rrj tfgos frftZf, 

K 



130 ARISTOTLE. 

Good is represented. The soul when truly virtuous, is con- 
ceived to be wrought to a temperament or mean state, all its 
Affections and Actions being in their due proportions to one 
another, and to the whole nature and circumstances of the indi- 
vidual man. 

To determine, however, this due measure of the Affections, 
is the great question of Ethics. An exercise of Eeason is 
implied in the adjustment of the Affections and Actions, so as 
neither to exceed nor fall short of the due measure on each 
occasion, and of that particular function indeed of Eeason 
which is conversant about the affairs of human life, and which 
we call Prudence. Aristotle, accordingly, includes in his out- 
line of Virtue, the statement that "the mean" must be "defined 
by Eeason, and as the prudent man would define it." Still the 
question remains, what is the standard of adjustment — what the 
criterion of the mean, as a mark to which the moral aim is to be 
directed ? 

Now, the instances in which this self-moderation belonging 
to the character of virtue is observed, become in themselves the 
objects of Approbation, exciting in us sentiments of love, esteem, 
admiration, honour, sympathy, etc. Hence the various expres- 
sions introduced into Moral Philosophy, of fitness, propriety, 
proportion, the decent, the fair, the honourable, the amiable, the 
expedient, etc. ; the adoption of one or more of which tests of 
the morality of Actions, has given its peculiar complexion to 
different systems. Aristotle contemplates these sentiments of 
Approbation, not as they are in themselves, but as they are 
outwardly evidenced by the Praise accompanying certain Actions. 1 
It is clear that men commonly praise some actions and censure 
others. Where men — not any particular class of men, but 
society at large — agree in praising any action, 2 there the action so 
commended may be regarded as good in itself, and an evidence 
of virtuous principle in the agent. The approbation thus 
signified was expressed in the Greek language by the term 

1 Eth. Nic. i. cap. ulr., ii. cap. 5, 8, 7 ; - Ibid. x. cap. 2, o yao tuci }oxu, 

Be Virt. et Vit. p. 291. tout thai <p«,p<v. 



PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY. 131 

xuXov, 1 to which we have no perfect counterpart in onr language, 
though the word " honourable " if understood in its full meaning, 
may sufficiently represent it. 

Aristotle proceeds to apply this criterion to the discrimina- 
tion of the several virtues ; a distinct class of objects of the Affec- 
tions constituting in his system the ground of a distinct virtue. 

His enumeration of the virtues of which the perfect Moral 
Character consists, is, as we might naturally expect in an ethical 
writer of his age and nation, incomplete. It is, however, abun- 
dant as an evidence, by induction, of that moderation of the 
affections — "the mean" — in which the nature of moral Virtue 
consists. 2 His division, indeed, of Virtue is an analysis of it 
into its constituent parts, as a whole ; such as, in fact, the moral 
world in which he lived presented it to his survey. He has been 
accused of attending chiefly to the splendid virtues. He was 
probably led, by the very criterion which he employed, as well 
as by his view of the connection between Ethics and Politics, 
to sketch more prominently those particular virtues which re- 
commend a man in society. And thus he has drawn beautiful 
outlines of those charms of familiar intercourse — affability, frank- 
ness, agreeableness. 3 His introduction, indeed, of these quali- 
ties among the virtues of his system, is a striking evidence of the 
practical nature of that virtue which he inculcates. It is a virtue 
which is not to be forgotten in any part of a man's daily life. 
Whilst it nerves his arm in dangers, distributes his bounty, shields 
him against temptations of pleasure, — it unbends him in the hours 
of leisure, and is ever on his tongue, whether gravely pronounc- 
ing in his assertions and judgments, or playing in the sallies of 
his wit. These very instances shew that he did not regard 
splendour as the exclusive attribute of virtue. On the contrary, 
he expressly speaks of it as the heightening and decoration of 
the several virtues, and as excellent, because it presupposes all 



1 Ethic, passim ; Hhet. i. cap. 9. ra 3 - *riffrzu<r<xi/u.tv civ, Wi Kuvroov ovru; 

2 Eth. Nic. iv. 7. MaXXov ri yap uv £%ov trvvi^ovrtf. 
iihr/iju.tv t« vripi <ro yf0o;, x.u.6' 1 'ixairrov 3 Ibid. iv. cap. 6, 7, 8. 
^nXS'ovrti' ku) y.ia'ornra.i sTvui to.; a.pi- 



132 ARISTOTLE. 

other virtues in their perfection. 1 Another evidence of his not 
being exclusive in his regard to the more showy virtues, is his 
treating of Gentleness. 2 

He selects the virtue of Justice 3 for more particular discus- 
sion, distinguishing it as a particular virtue from the whole of 
Justice, of which it bears the name — in its being the modera- 
tion of the love of gain or self-interest. 4 Seduced, however, by 
the example of Plato, he departs, in his mode of treating this 
virtue, from the strict province of Ethics into that of Politics. 
The Justice which he explains is a political virtue, applicable to 
the citizens of a common state, rather than to man as man. And 
this confusion of ethical and political justice has led him into a 
speculative refinement, which involves a difficulty in reconciling 
the notion of Justice with his theory of Virtue. Looking at 
Justice as a dispensing and regulating power, he observed that 
it was concerned about " a mean," in things themselves ; either 
in distributing to each person in a state his proportionate share 
of its common advantages, or in vindicating the persons and 
property of its members from aggression and wrong. On the 
ground of this observation he points out that justice is not " a 
mean," as the other virtues are, but is " of the mean " — not in itself 
" a relative mean," but " relative to a mean." Had he considered 
Justice solely as a moral habit ; he would have seen that the dis- 
tinction was unnecessary : since in this point of view it conforms 
precisely to his general notion of Virtue in being a principle of 
self-moderation. There is, however, a foundation for the remark 
in the circumstance, that Justice admits of greater exactness in 
its exercise than other virtues. " The rules of Justice," says an 
excellent writer, 5 " may be compared to the rules of Grammar ; 
the rules of the other virtues to the rules which critics lay down 

1 Eih. Nic. iv. cap. 3, hixt ph olv h " On Justice" in four books. (Diog. 

f^iya.'ko-^/vx'i"-, oiov x'off^og ns uvai ruv Laert.) 

u/>srwv (li'i^ovs yu(> auras •Ptotu, kou ov 4 Znrovftzv $s yi t*jv iv f^ipn oixaioirv- 

y'ivira.1 aviu ixtiveuv o^icc tovto ^ocXt-rov Tn vv\v' ztrrt yap <n;, u; <pccftsv' . . . oIxtti 

a.'Kvi6i\a. f&iyaXo^pi>%ov liven' ov ya.% otov tpxvipov on 'iffTt ns aoixict Totpcc <r»v o\yv 

n ci'Jiv xocXoxKyaCiui. aXX'/i iv f&ipsi, <rvvcovvju.o;. Etll, NtC. V. 4. 

2 Ibid. iv. cap. 5, . 5 Adam Smith, Thcor.of Hor.Sentim., 

3 Among Lis lost treatises was one part iii. chap. G. 



PBACTICAL PHILOSOPHY. 133 

for the attainment of what is sublime and elegant in com- 
position." In the other virtues we are thrown more on our 
sense of propriety j n forming our practical decisions. In 
Justice we have evident facts before us — the merit or demerit 
of individuals in themselves ; and these form an external stand- 
ard to guide us in our conduct, over and above our internal 
convictions of right. So far, then, Justice may be regarded 
as "of the mean," besides being also a point of propriety, 
or a mean within ourselves. Aristotle, it should be observed, 
had no other more appropriate word distinct from " Justice " 
to express " honesty " or " integrity," or i( uprightness ; " and 
was led, it seems, to contemplate justice more as a public virtue, 
than as an inward principle, directing and controlling the 
thoughts and feelings of the private individual in every action of 
his life. It was not indeed that he regarded " the just " as 
existing by human institutions alone ; for he expressly dis- 
tinguishes between Xatural and Instituted right ;* but he takes 
the Laws established in each state as the particular views of 
natural right which belong to it, and the positive rule to which 
its citizens must conform their conduct. 

"What however, he goes on in the sequel to observe concern- 
ing Equity, should be taken in connection with his formal mode 
of treating the subject of Justice, as bringing the application of 
the social principle there asserted, home to the precincts of 
private life. For when he speaks of Equity as a better and 
higher kind of Justice, and of the equitable man, as one who is 
praised above the ordinary good man for his conciliatory cha- 
racter, in not insisting on strict right, but interpreting the law 
by considerate application of it to each particular case, — he is 
evidently proceeding on the notion, that the sense of Justice is to 
be sought, not in the mere institutions which embody it as an 
external form, but as it resides in ourselves ; inasmuch as the 
appeal is from the former to the latter, and the injustice and 
imperfection of the law without us must be remedied by that 
within us. 2 

1 Eth. Xic. v. 7. : Ibid., v. 10. 



134 ARISTOTLE. 

We may be surprised at first that he founds no particular virtue 
on the moderation of the feeling of shame A/'<3w£, — that having 
evidently for its object, the prevention of one's doing shameful 
actions, and the avoidance of all shameful things; and, as a 
feeling or passion, requiring to be duly regulated in order to 
constitute it into a virtue, such as that we designate by the name 
of Modesty. But he considers Shame in a bad sense ; and as a 
bodily affection, — shewing itself, as it does, by the blush on the 
face, — and consequently, as more like a passion than a habit. He 
allows indeed, that it may be praised in young men ; because it 
may be a check in them to the indulgence of Passion ; but re- 
gards it as quite out of place in the old, because they should 
never do anything to which Shame attaches. Whilst it obtains, 
accordingly, no place in his Ethics as a Virtue, 1 he considers 
it as a Passion very fully in his Rhetoric ; and for the purpose 
of the orator, describes, as in the case of the other passions, the 
objects about which it is conversant, the persons susceptible of it, 
and those towards whom it is felt. Bat there it appears under 
its more proper designation of a passion, by the name, 'A/o^umj, as 
" a pain and perturbation about those evils, whether present, or 
past, or future, which appear to tend to disrepute ; " 2 and not 
as a principle capable of being elevated into a virtue under the 
respected name of AJdug. 

Aristotle's discussion of Friendship 3 is open to the like objec- 
tion, as to the form in which it is cast, as that of Justice. He 
has considered it in its outward effects as a social principle 
akin to Justice — and to which Justice is subordinate and 
supplementary — rather than as an internal ethical principle, the 
moderated exercise of benevolence or kindness in the heart 
itself. His observations, however, on the subject admirably 
illustrate the importance of Friendship to the right constitution 
of society — the various modifications of the benevolent principle 
in the different relations of human life — together with the pecu- 
liar loveliness and charm of Virtue itself. In the last respect, 
indeed, the discussion forms an essential part of his Moral Philo- 

1 Eth. Nk. ii. 8. 2 Met. ii. 6. s Eih. Nic. viii. ix. 



PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY. 135 

sophy, as it tends to shew his conviction that the moral principles 
have their seat in the heart. 

Indeed, this part of his Ethics, as well as his inquiry into 
Justice, should be accurately studied by all who would obtain 
just views of the comprehensive character of the Virtue of his 
system. Together they comprise a body of relative duties. 
Under Justice would be classed the duties of " religion, memory 
of the dead, filial reverence, patriotism, civil obedience, veracity, 
honesty," etc., 1 so far as these duties flow from claims on our 
respect, and are prescribed by human laws ; under Friendship, 
the same duties as they are prompted by sentiment and feeling, 
and are known by the names of piety, gratitude, benevolence, 
fidelity, generosity, etc. Hence the character of Virtue, in the 
little compilation on the Virtues and Vices which passes among 
his works ; that " it is of virtue both to benefit the worthy and 
to love the good ; and to be neither apt to punish nor revengeful, 
but merciful, and placable, and indulgent : and thus there follow 
on Virtue, kindness, equity, candour, good hope ; moreover, such 
qualities as, to be domestic, friendly, social, hospitable, philan- 
thropic, and a lover of what is honourable." 2 

His theory, then, of Virtue must be regarded as involving a 
minute and distinct attention to all the particular virtues. And 
herein appears its great excellence, as contrasted with those of 
some modern philosophers, who have endeavoured to trace up 
all the virtues to some one principle of our nature, as benevolence, 
or self-love, or prudence. All such theories are in truth mere 
accommodations of language, by which different classes of pheno- 
mena are arranged under the same terms ; the effect of which is 
to give a shadowiness to the form of virtue, instead of striking it 
out in distinct outline. Aristotle's theory is the law by which 
these different principles are held together, in fact — the common 
process by which the operation of each virtue is carried on ; and 
which, when realized in the character of a man, gives him the 
command of all the virtues. 

The ancient Moral Philosophy sought, like the Modern, to 

1 De Virtut. et Vit. 2 De Virt. et Vit. p. 296, Du Val. 



136 ARISTOTLE. 

resolve Virtue into some one principle. But the endeavour of 
the ancients was chiefly to ground it on some Intellectual prin- 
ciple. Socrates contended that the virtues were instances of 
Prudence or Knowledge, (ppovfasig, or \6yoi, or Isr/crS^a/. Aristotle 
shews the foundation of this misconception, in explaining in 
what respect the production of Virtue might be regarded as the 
work of the intellect. Each virtue consisting, as he shews, in 
the adjustment of the action to all the circumstances of the case, 
the virtue of an action must depend on the practical judgment 
of the individual agent ; and an agent who is uniformly virtuous 
must exhibit this practical judgment uniformly operating, 
enabling him readily to decide on the point in which the virtue 
of acting lies. 1 This operation of the intellect on moral objects 
he designates as the intellectual virtue of Prudence or Wisdom. 2 
When he speaks of it as " defining " or bounding the mean in 
which virtue consists ; 3 he implies that, as a speculative defini- 
tion presents to the mind an exact notion of the thing defined, 
so the principles supplied by Prudence give clear perceptions of 
the moral nature of an Action. For example, suppose a man to 
have received some evident wrong — some injury done to him 
without provocation. The Affection of Eesentment naturally 
leads him to requite the injustice on his assailant. But by 
what method of action he should do so, is a matter of question. 
He must know exactly in what way his Eesentment should be 
shewn, in order to act virtuously ; besides having, as his general 
principle, the inclination to act virtuously. 4 He must, therefore, 
have had some experience of human life — some practical know- 
ledge of the nature of Actions which have been generally ap- 
proved as fulfilling the end of this Affection. An experience, 
then, of this kind, applied to the exercise of all the Affections, 
and operating invariably on the conduct, constitutes the Prudence 
of Aristotle's system. It is thus intimately connected with the 
moral principles, as the moral principles are with it. It is the 

1 Polit. vii. 13. 3 Etli. Nic. ii, 6, u^nr^Un *-'oyu, xa.) us 

2 2o<piu means Philosophy rather than «v o tpgovipos ofauiv. 

what we understand by wisdom. * Mag. Mor. ii. c. 7 ; Eth. Nic. 



PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY. 137 

combined result, in the intellectual part of our nature, of all the 
virtues of the heart ; as, on the other hand, Prudence is the diverg- 
ing of the intellect through the various virtues of the heart. 
Hence his conclusion, that it is impossible to be properly good 
— zvpfag dyadov — without Prudence ; or to be prudent without 
moral Virtue ; and consequently, that all the Moral virtues 
are inseparable, inasmuch as the possession of all is requisite 
for the perfecting of Prudence, 1 and with Prudence they all 
follow. 

In this account of Prudence- is to be traced the principle of 
Moral Obligation involved in Aristotle's theory of Virtue. He 
considers the Moral virtues as those of the inferior part of the 
soul, and therefore as formed to obey ; whereas the Intellectual 
principles, as being purely rational, have, as such, an intrinsic 
authority. Prudence, accordingly, being the Intellectual virtue 
employed in conjunction with the moral in the production of 
Virtue, is, from its nature, supreme over its associated principles, 
and demands of right their submission to its dictates. 2 It must 
be confessed that such a ground of obligation is merely theoretic; 
and so Aristotle himself perceived it to be. 8 As a principle of 
observation and reflection, it resembles in some measure the 
supremacy of Conscience ; but it does not come up to the force 
of that Master-principle. Conscience rewards and punishes by 
its judgments, carrying with it a sense of merit and demerit ; 
whereas the dictates of prudence carry no such sanction in them. 
Properly, however, the notion of " Obligation " is inapplicable to 
his system. Not inculcating Morality as a law, but as a philo- 
sophy, or art of life, he was not called upon to shew why it should 
be obeyed as a law. It was enough for him to point out, from 
observations on human conduct, that it is in fact obeyed by all 
who attain their real good. 

But though the principle of Conscience has no place in his 
theory, it is certainly implied in his test of virtue and vice — the 
praise and blame of mankind. The universal consent of man- 

1 Eth. Nic. vi. c. 13, x. c. 8 ; End. v. c. 12. 
2 Ibid. i. c. 13, iii. c, 12 ; Polit. viii. c. 14. 3 Ibid. x. c. 9. 



138 AMSTOTLE. 

kind on these points he regards as decisive of the Moral nature 
of an action. But this is to allow a standard of right and wrong 
inherent in human nature, or what is equivalent to a Conscience. 
If all agree in praising a certain modification of the Affections, 
and in blaming another, it is clear that there must be some com- 
mon principles in all to serve as the bases of these unanimous 
judgments. The same conclusion results from his admission of 
Dispositions or Capacities of virtue, and of the existence of 
Natural virtue, in man, antecedent to the proper formation of it 
in the character. Indeed, his analysis of Prudence is decisive of 
his real view of this point. Not only are the principles on which 
Prudence is to speculate to be drawn from the heart ; but the 
very deduction of these principles to the particular cases of con- 
duct involves moral perceptions. For how else is the precise 
point in which the " mean " lies — in which the due measure of 
the Affection exerted consists — to be ascertained ? If the virtue 
of the Action consisted in an absolute mean, a mere intellectual 
process, such as that of Arithmetic or Geometry, might ascertain 
it. But the mean in question being neither more nor less than 
what is proper, this implies a sense of propriety. Eight con- 
duct, according to him, is not such because it is neither exces- 
sive nor defective : but is neither excessive nor defective be- 
cause it is right. This is plain from his induction of the several 
virtues, in which he shews that there is a " mean," because there 
is a point of propriety ; so that a Moral perception must precede 
every decision on Moral questions. It is of the greatest con- 
sequence, in order to a right understanding of his account of 
Virtue, to observe this necessary dependence of the knowledge of 
the " mean," on the adjustment of the moral principles to their 
objects. The want of attention to it has led to absurd objec- 
tions against Aristotle's theory. He has been interpreted, as 
if he had said that we could have too much courage, too 
much liberality, etc. ; which notion proceeds on the false 
assumption, that the mean laid down by Aristotle is a quantity ; 
whereas it is only a proportion or correspondence existing 
between the principles of the agent and the objects of those 



PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY. 139 

principles. l The term " mean," in fact, as employed by Aris- 
totle, is merely negative, marking the exclusion of all unchas- 
tened, inordinate, or undue feeling from the character of Virtue. 
It is a mean, as the term expresses part of its logical definition ; 
whilst in respect of its excellence, and " what is well," rb sv, it is 
an extreme. 

But though his system is defective as an authoritative law, 
it develops a much nobler theory of duty than the philosophy 
which rests our obligation to virtue on a ground of interest. The 
" Prudence " of Aristotle's Ethics must be understood as widely 
different from the prudence of such a theory. The Prudence 
which he teaches is no calculation of consequences. It is a 
practical philosophy of the heart ; inseparably connected with 
the love of that conduct which it suggests. Whereas, when we 
are taught to act on the ground of interest, the prudence then 
inculcated is a mere intellectual foresight of consequences, inde- 
pendent of any exercise of the heart. 2 Such a system, whilst it 
overthrows the distinction between right and wrong as a funda- 
mental principle, requires either a very comprehensive power of 
intellect in order to its practical adoption, or an express revela- 
tion from the Deity, declaring the good and evil consequences 
annexed to particular actions. These are conditions which suffi- 
ciently expose its futility as a sole guide to duty. The heart of 
man leaves far behind this morality of consequences, and decides, 
even before the action itself has its birth, whether it is morally 
right or wrong. The appeal to the revealed will of the Deity is 
not only a petitio princvpii, inasmuch as no will of the Deity can 
be ascertained and proved divine, without the previous admis- 
sion of principles of right and wrong ; but is refuted by the 
simple fact, that theories of Virtue, such as that of Aristotle, 



iffTiv n aoirr' xara bi to agnrrov x 



v.i -TO 



6, o {/.'ATI Tkiovd^ti, f&riTt lk\tt<rzi, rod iv dxgorw;. 

-o-ro%a<rrixri yi ovo-a rod pitrov. . . 2 A moral philosophy of this kind is 



novro; 



f&i>rorns dl Ivo xaxiav, rns u\v xaf uiri^- in fact a revival in a new form of the 

Go\kv rns Tt xar eAAs/i^/v xa) 'in <rcp ras theory of Socrates, which made Virtue a 

fih iXhticreiv, ras V v'<*ip€u'A.}.ziv rod science. It overlooks the Affections in 

dtovros ... A/o xark ptv rhv outrtav, xx) the production of virtue, as the theory 

rov "k'oyov tov r't rjv uvxt >Jyovra, fAir'orm of Socrates did- 



140 ARISTOTLE. 

have been devised by men who had no positive belief in a 
Divine Providence. Independently of the excellence of such 
theories, the mere fact of their existence as accounts of Human 
Duties is sufficient for the argument. That " the difference, and 
the only difference," between an act of prudence and an act of 
duty is, " that in the one case, we consider what we shall gain or 
lose in the present world — in the other case, we consider also 
what we shall gain or lose in the world to' come ; M1 — is an" asser- 
tion, disproved at once by the fact, that Aristotle saw a difference 
between the two acts, independently of that consideration on 
which the notion of duty is there made to rest. Whether he 
has stated the difference correctly or not, is immaterial to this 
point. 

The principle of Self-love has also been well illustrated by 
Aristotle in its relation to virtue. He distinguishes between the 
culpable form of it or selfishness, and that form of it which is 
auxiliary to virtue. Self-love, then, in its good sense, may be 
acted on by the virtuous man, whose character is already framed on 
the principle of " the honourable ; " and in that case, he shews, it 
will be coincident with Benevolence ; since the person so pursuing 
his own interest, will also effectually promote that of others. But 
this is not the case with the bad man ; since, in pursuit of his 
views of self-interest, the bad man will at once injure himself and 
others by compliance with bad passions. 2 It is further evident 
from the above, that he does not admit of Benevolence being made 
a principle of conduct, otherwise than as it presupposes other 
moral principles, and is regulated consequently in its exercise by 
a prevailing regard to the " honourable " or right. He has also 
enforced his primary notions of Duty by pointing out the proper 
amiableness of Virtue, both as the only sure tie of attachment 
between man and man, 3 and as the only thing which produces 
tranquillity, self-satisfaction, and delight, in a man's own bosom. 
On the latter point, indeed, he speaks almost in terms descriptive 

1 Paley's Mor. and Pol. Philos., book 2 Eth. Nic. vol. ix. cap. 8 ; Mag. Mor. 

ii. chap. 3. ii. 13, 14; Polit. ii. 3. 

3 See Bishop Butler, Serm. i. 



PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY. 141 

of the joys and pangs of Conscience. 1 So justly has he embraced 
in his view the most powerful auxiliary principles, without ex- 
alting them, as some philosophers have done, to an undue place, 
by making the Theory of Virtue to rest on them. 

Such, then, is that account of Virtue which Aristotle's 
Practical Philosophy develops. He delivers it as the theory of 
perfect conduct — as that winch is exemplified in operation 
whenever human good is realized in life. It is at the same time, 
it should be observed, both on account of the Nature of Virtue, 
and of the internal process of Man's Constitution by which 
Virtue is produced. The affections being all habitually mode- 
rated by Prudence, Virtue is the result ; and in that Moderation 
consists the Nature of Virtue. 

He was not, however, inattentive to the fact, that the specu- 
lative perfection of a practical rule is not realised in Human 
Life. He was aware that a complete subordination of the 
Affections to the principle of Prudence, was a task of difficulty 
above the efforts of Man as he is. So also his view of Vice, as 
that state of man in which his principles are entirely corrupted, 2 
— the affections being conformed to evil, so that he continually 
and insensibly 3 chooses evil rather than good 4 — is a philosophical 
limit of the extent of human depravity, and not an account of 
Vice as it actually exists in the world. 5 It is, I p u, a just 
conclusion, from experience of that degradation to which our 
nature is brought — the hardening of the heart, as the Scripture 
terms it, by the habitual violation of duty. " For of Virtue and 
Depravity," he observes, "the one impairs the moral principle, 

Etll. Nic. ix. cap. 4, Ej o"yi to ovtu; xaxa, '"iXhttu a\tr@n<ra., aoixia xai a.<p^o- 
%X,u% Xiett io-riv a.9ktov, Qivxtiov rhv p.o%0v- ffvr/i. See Bishop Butler's Analogy, 
gtav 'SioiriTocv.zvus, x.u.) Trzipariov iittoixn Chapter on Moral Discipline. 

uva.r OUT&) yap xa) toos iuvtov (btXixco; av , 77 . -, „^ ~ 

» « , , , t-, 7 Ibid. Vll. cap. 8, Or; piv oCv xa- 

ty.°'i * ai trio** (piXos ytvoiro. Eudem. , , , , , ,, , , 

** ' xia. '/) axpaata ovx ttrrt, Quvioov uXXa 

vii. cap. 6- «%»%*,»« 

„ .,, . 7 n , , <xri i<ru$' to uiv yap iruou -rpoaipitrty, to dz 

1 Ibid. Vll. cap. 8, H yap ccoit-a xa) y , , * 

, , f *, , . . , t XUTU Tooatoio-iv io-tiv. 

fjbo^'/ioiu. t'/jv agx'/iv, n [aiv <p0iip-i, n oi 

ffuZ,u ; vi. 5, "Eo-ti yag n xaxiu <p6a,£Tixh 5 Ibid. iv. cap. 5, Ob ph utuvtu ys 

*£XtlS- tZ o-utco utu^w oh yap av ^uvatT uvar 

3 Ibid. vii. cap. 9, h fi)v yug xuxia to yu% xuxov xa) iuuto air'oWvtri, xav 

XavSava. Hhet. 11. 4, to. d\ {/,uXio~tcc oZoxkqoov r^ uQoonTO'j yiviTui. 



142 ARISTOTLE. 

the other preserves it ; so also of Vice, in particular, that it escapes 
the notice, i.e., of the individual in whom it is ; he is not sensible of 
it as iniquity and foil} 7 ." He here describes what takes place with 
regard to all passive impressions. This insensibility to Vice 
is the natural result of habitual familiarity with it. A person, by 
the practice of it, becomes, at once, more expert in vicious acts ; 
more ready to repeat them ; more unscrupulous in his conduct ; 
but gradually feels its intrinsic viciousness less, and comes 
almost to like it ; if such a thing could be as a real liking for Vice, 
such as that avowed by the embodied Principle of Evil, in the 
words of the poet, " Evil be thou my Good." And a similar effect 
is realized in the virtuous character on the opposite side. The 
moral principles subsist as internal principles in their perfection, 
when they are so wrought into a man's nature as to operate 
without thought or effort in his conduct. As the end, therefore 
— as the perfect form of vice — this state of the heart demands to 
be sketched out by the moralist, to give the full truth and 
cogency to his admonitions. His outlines of Virtue must be 
drawn from Virtue realized in its tendency — from that condition 
of it in which it is the attainment of man's Chief Good ; as Vice, 
on the other hand, must be contemplated where it stands fully 
confessed as man's Chief Evil. There may be a virtue above 
Man's nature, as there may be a vice below it ; and Aristotle 
notices both these extremes. But neither of these presents a 
standard of human excellence or human depravity, and therefore 
requires no distinct consideration in an Ethical treatise. The 
actual virtues, however, and vices of men, as they are observed 
in the world, exhibit an endless variety of modifications within 
the theoretic limits of Virtue and Vice. The Affections are 
more or less brought into subjection to the rational principle in 
different individuals ; and men are praised and blamed, in pro- 
portion as they have established this command over themselves ; 
or have impaired and lost it. Hence a secondary or inferior 
kind of Virtue results, as well as a less odious Vice. 

As it is in the indulgence of the sensual affections that 
human frailty is most seen, Aristotle distinguishes this secondary 



PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY. 143 

virtue and vice by contrast with the particular virtue and vice 
of Temperance and Intemperance, "Saxpgomii, and 'AxoXaoia, as if 
they were simply what we express by Continence and Incon- 
tinence, 'Eyxpdrsiu, and 'Axgaff/a. But his distinction of their 
nature is a general one, and belongs to the whole character of 
Virtue and Vice. 1 In admitting however, a morality of this 
nature, he laboured under a speculative difficulty. Socrates had 
denied the existence of any such imperfect vice, on the ground 
that the virtues were sciences ; and that it was impossible for a 
man to act against his knowledge of the best. Aristotle, who, 
though not agreeing with Socrates in regarding the virtues as 
sciences, 2 still admitted an intellectual process in the production 
of Virtue, felt himself required to explain, how this higher prin- 
ciple was ever overpowered by the weaker, as it is in the incon- 
tinent man. In the course of this explanation, he has touched 
on the true philosophy of those facts in which the principles and 
practice of men are evidenced at variance. He has accounted, in 
some measure, for the apparent anomaly of the same person exhi- 
biting such contrasts of character — at one time commanding the 
passions, at another yielding to them. For he delineates, it 
should be observed, under the characters of " the continent" and 
" incontinent," not two different persons, as in the case of " the 
temperate" and "intemperate," but what will usually be the 
same person at alternate intervals ; since no one can very long 
remain either. For by the one course continued long, and the 
habit consequently formed, a person will become the "temperate" 
man, by the other the " intemperate." 

The question of the freedom of the Will has been admirably 
treated by Aristotle. It is discussed as it ought to be in a 
treatise of Moral Philosophy, independently of those metaphysical 
difficulties with which it is commonly overlaid. What the nature 
of the Human Will is, whether it is free or necessary, according 
to our abstract notions of liberty or necessity, forms no part 
of his inquiry. He points out simply, what are the classes of 

1 Eth. Nic. vii. c. 7; Eudem. vi. ; Ibid. iii. c. 11. 
2 Eudem. vii. c. 13 : Eth. Nic. vii c. 3. 



144 ARISTOTLE. 

actions in which an agent is generally held not responsible for 
his conduct; and, excluding these, decides on the remainder; 
that, since in these, men are held responsible ; (as is shewn by the 
praise and blame, reward and punishment, attaching to their 
conduct) ; the actions are voluntary. This is the extent to which 
the inquiry, so far as it is strictly ethical, ought to be carried. 
Whether we speculatively conclude the Will of man to be free 
or necessary, practically we must regard it as free. For to act 
on that supposition, accords with the facts of human life : 
whereas, to act on the theory that we are under a necessity, 
would lead us against the practice of mankind, which treats 
persons as responsible for their actions. Aristotle indeed argues, 
that though the question be decided in the negative, it leaves the 
relative nature of Virtue and Vice on the same footing. If their 
virtues may still be imputed to men, so may their vices. 1 But 
he more distinctly affirms the voluntary nature both of virtue 
and vice, on the ground that the dpx^i, the principle of the action, 
is sft JifiTv — in ourselves — in our own power. Thus, though the 
virtuous or vicious habits that men have formed, may dispose 
them to a particular course of behaviour ; so that, as under their 
influence, they cannot act otherwise ; yet the actions so performed 
are voluntary ; because it was in their power to pursue, or to 
forbear, that course of conduct which led to the settled habit, 
and to the corruption of their moral principles. 

The principle thus described as " in ourselves," is, in Aris- 
totle's Philosophy, the Motive of action. It is that from which 
the effect in the conduct originates ; and it comes, therefore, 
under that class of principles which constitute the Motive or 
Efficient Cause. The term Motive, however, is, popularly, ap- 
plied to the object or end of an Action, 2 which, being something 

1 Eudem. iii. c. J, 5 ; which is in sub- ness " as " a motive." {Hor. and Pol. 
stance the conclusion of Bishop Butler Phil., b. ii. c. 3.) We use the term 
(Anal. p. 1. chap, on the Opinion of correctly, when we say that Ambition or 

'Necessity). The whole doctrine of this Avarice is a person's motive, but not in 

Chapter is coincident with the views of saying that Power, or Interest, or Hap- 

Aristotle, and illustrative of them. piness, is so ; for these are ends. 

2 Paley speaks of " private happi- 



PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY. 145 

external to ourselves, or at least capable of being so viewed, gives 
occasion to question the voluntary nature of Actions. An aim, 
indeed, at a particular end is implied in every Action ; and on 
the End sought depends the morality or immorality of the 
Action. But, in strictness, it is the Choice alone r\ Kpodipsag, 
that moves the agent. 1 

But the principles employed in the production of Moral 
virtue are not the whole of our internal nature, nor are they 
the highest principles. And Aristotle's theory implies the 
exertion of all ; and further, if there be a relative superiority 
among them, a preference of the higher. The moral virtues, 
according to the theory of Plato which he adopted, having their 
seat in that part of the soul which was termed irrational — or 
only rational as it was capable of obedience to Eeason — were the 
virtues of the inferior part. Accordingly, the greatest Happiness 
must result from the exertion of the Intellectual principles. 
Analyzing these into the five heads of, 1. Science, or the know- 
ledge of Demonstrative Necessary Truth, hcternM ', 2. Art, or the 
knowledge of Contingent Truth in the operations of man, rl^n ', 
3. Prudence, <pp6v?i<fig, or the knowledge of Contingent Truth in 
the conduct of Life ; 4. Intelligence, or the knowledge of First 
Principles, vovg ; 5. Wisdom or Philosophy cop/a ; he assigns the 
pre-eminence to the last, as the perfect combination of Science 
and Intelligence, and as having for its objects the highest 
natures. 

That a philosopher, living amidst the disorder and misery 
occasioned by the want of true Eeligion, should have sought for 
a perfection of happiness out of the troubled scene in which 
moral virtue is disciplined, cannot excite our wonder. The calm 
regions of philosophical contemplation — sapientum temjpla serena 
— presented a natural refuge to the anxious mind, eager to 
realize its own abstractions in some perfect form of human life. 
It was a search, indeed, after that happiness which Eevelation 
has made known to man — a happiness out of his present sphere 
of exertion and duty, where he might obtain the full end, or 

1 Etli. Nic. vi. c. 2 ; Eadem. ii. c. 11 ; Metaph. vi. c. 1. 
L 



146 ARISTOTLE. 

consummate good, of his being. Aristotle accordingly describes 
the pursuit of this ulterior happiness, as the " immortalizing " of 
our nature ; as the living according to what is " divine " in man ; 
as what renders a man most dear to the Divinity, most godlike. 1 
Not attributing, however, any real immortality to the nature of 
man, he could only draw his notion of perfect happiness from a 
view of the present life. 2 In this view, the Intellectual virtues are 
undoubtedly entitled to the preference ; though experience must 
have convinced him, that even these were not without their alloy. 3 
He by no means, however, regards the exercise of the Intellectual 
virtues as an exemption from the necessity of cultivating the 
Moral. The happiness of the Theoretic life is the highest privi- 
lege of man's nature. Still the practice of the Moral virtues is 
enjoined, that each person may perform his part as a man living 
amongst men. No philosophy but that of Aristotle has so justly 
maintained this proposition. Plato would lead his followers 
into the indolent reveries of mysticism ; the Stoics would 
reduce theirs to indifference about human things ; the Epi- 
cureans would absorb theirs in the fulness of present delights ; 
Cicero would degrade the higher functions of the contemplative 
life below the ordinary moral duties, confounding the dignity 
and the indispensableness of an employment. But Aristotle 
elevates the aim of man to that happiness which, as purely 
intellectual, is inadequate to the wants of a nature consisting of 
body and soul ; whilst he calls him also to the strenuous dis- 
charge of the duties belonging to that compound nature, and to 
his actual condition in the world. 

Politics. 

The experienced inefficiency of ethical precepts in themselves 
to produce morality in the lives of men, and the consequent 
appeal to some external sanction for their enforcement, led to 

1 Eth. Nic. x. c. 7 and 8. 3 See Bishop Butler's Sermon On the 

2 Ibid. x. c. 8, at §£ tov evvQirov Ignorance of Man. 

cc^irti xvfyuTiKai, x. r. X. 



PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY. 147 

such works among the ancients as the Politics of Aristotle. The 
Christian observes the same fact, and draws from it a strong 
argument for the necessity of a Divine Eevelation. Aristotle 
and other Greek philosophers looked to the influence of Edu- 
cation directed by civil laws and institutions, and to the rewards 
and punishments of civil government, as the great instruments 
for bringing mankind to that course of action in which their real 
interest consisted. 

In ascribing this moral force to the law of the state, Aristotle 
adopted the current notion of Ancient Philosophy, which con- 
founded moral and political good. The good of man as an indi- 
vidual was conceived perfectly coincident with his good as a 
citizen ; and the science of Politics, therefore, was treated as 
including under it that of Ethics. Had not philosophers been 
misled by their extreme pursuit of abstract speculation, they 
could hardly have thus blended together the distinct objects of 
moral and political science in one common theory. They would 
have seen that the social union could only indirectly promote 
that good of man which belongs to his internal nature ; that it 
could reach no further than to the protection of the individual 
from external aggression on his person and property, and allow- 
ing him the unobstructed exercise of his virtue. " Civil govern- 
ment," says Bishop Butler, " can by no means take cognizance of 
every work which is good or evil ; many things are done in 
secret, the authors unknown to it, and often the things them- 
selves ; then it cannot so much consider actions under the view 
of their being morally good or evil, as under the view of their 
being mischievous or beneficial to society ; nor can it in any 
wise execute judgment in regarding what is good, as it can, and 
ought, and does, in punishing what is evil" 

In consequence of this misapprehension of the end of the 
social union, the Political philosophy of Greece was not a system 
of jurisprudence, nor any discussion of questions affecting the 
policy of particular states. It was a speculation concerning the 
Perfect Polity — a theory of social happiness considered as the 
result of positive institutions and laws. Ingenious men amused 



148 ARISTOTLE. 

themselves with fancying how society might be modelled, so as 
to exhibit an ideal optimism ; instead of attending to the real 
phenomena of human life, and 'deducing from them the right 
administration of Society under its existing forms. 1 

Aristotle, accordingly, constructed a theory of Politics on this 
delusive principle. Proposing to himself the Perfect Polity, as 
that in which the virtue and happiness of the man and the 
citizen exactly coincide, he proceeds to sketch out the form of it, 
and thus to obtain an outline of the institutions on which his 
ethical system must depend for its support. But he was not so 
fascinated by the theory on which he worked, as to overlook the 
practical nature of the science. He complains of his predecessors, 
that however well they might have treated the subject in other 
respects, they had at least failed in the useful. They had con- 
tented themselves with devising forms of polity which could only 
be realized with a concurrence of every favourable circumstance : 
whereas the usefulness of the science required the delivery of 
principles such as were practicable in existing cases. We know, 
indeed, from the titles of other works on Politics which he is 
said to have written, The Polities of One Hundred and Fifty-eight 
States, four books On Laws, and two books On the Political Man, 2 
that he did not consider the subject as exhausted in the theory 
of a perfect polity. The observations, too, on Justice and on Civil 
Policy, contained in his Ethics and Ehetoric, are proofs of the 
sound practical views with which he contemplated the subject. 
And even in the work now before us, which develops his pro- 
fessed theory of Politics, the substance of the inquiry is, judicious 
and enlightened instructions of policy, drawn from experience of 
human nature, and applicable to all times and circumstances. 
Prom its connection with his Ethics, it was intended, probably, 
to be applied by each individual in the practical business of 
Education. He wished the student to obtain that scientific 

1 Draco, however, and Pittacus, were Diogenes Laertius. A portion of the 
only framers of laws, and not of polities. Polities of One Hundred and Fijhj- 
— Aristot. Polit. ii. c. idt. eight States, relating to the constitution 

of Athens, has been preserved by Julius 

8 These works are mentioned by Pollux. 



PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY. 149 

knowledge of the effects of institution and discipline on the 
human character, which might assist him in the treatment of the 
particular cases of his own experience. 1 It thus harmonized 
completely with his Ethics ; the object of which was, as has 
been shewn, to enable each man to attain his own particular 
good by a general knowledge of the real good of man. 

The perfect polity sketched by Aristotle is a theory of the 
end to which man, viewed in his social capacity, at its best 
estate, and unimpeded by external obstacles, may be conceived 
to tend. It is a view of the End or rsXog in his Political system, 
corresponding to his account of the Chief Good in his Ethics. 
He arrives at it by the same train of thought which led him to 
his account of the Chief Good. He considers, first, that man, 
independently of any calculations of expediency, is naturally a 
political being ; 2 as in his Ethics he assumes that man is endued 
by nature with active principles tending to his own good. He 
admits that Expediency is instrumental in cementing the union 
among men, but does not rest society on this principle ; wisely 
judging that man is induced originally to associate with man 
by various internal principles of his nature, and not simply by 
motives derived from reflection on his wants. Such motives are 
in truth only secondary causes, and auxiliary to the former ; in 
like manner as the principle of self-love is auxiliary to the 
natural affections on which virtue is founded. As, then, in his 
Ethics, he went on to inquire what principle rendered actions 
perfect, exhibiting them as attaining the end for which Nature 
had constituted the Affections ; and as this principle formed the 
Chief Good of his Ethical system ; so in his Politics, he carries 
on his view of the social nature of man to the point where the 
union to which it tends appears self-sufficient and perfect. The 
mode in which the social principles might be found to operate 
in this ultimate case would present the perfection of Social 
Virtue. And from this specimen of Social Virtue would be 
deducible right forms of government, institutions, and laws, just 

1 Eth. Nic. x. c. ult. 2 Polit. i. 2, iii. 6. 



150 AEISTOTLE. 

as the rules of right moral conduct are drawn from the whole 
moral nature of man contemplated in its perfection. 

To put ourselves, accordingly, into that posture of mind in 
which Aristotle contemplated the subject, we must suppose the 
case of a society analogous to that of an individual. The analogy 
between the principles of the heart, as a constitution, or system 
of related principles tending to a common end, and the elements 
of a political community, could not but be familiar to the mind 
of a disciple of Plato, who delighted in drawing his outlines of 
moral virtue from the imagery of social life. But Aristotle, 
though sometimes imitating the beautiful language of Plato in 
his ethical descriptions, has inverted the analogy, and framed 
his representation of a perfect society after the resemblance of 
the internal constitution of the heart. "We must imagine, then, 
the various members of a community, when brought to the 
standard of perfection implied in the notion of a Perfect Con- 
stitution, all obtaining their respective dues, in a manner 
analogous to the due moderation of the affections in the virtuous 
character. A " mean" is to be attained in the one case as in 
the other. 

Agreeably to this view of his mode of speculation on the 
subject, he describes the Perfect Polity as a mixture of Oligarchy 
and Democracy — as a state which appears to be both these 
forms of government, and yet neither of them ; in which, no one 
of the component elements of Society has preponderance, but 
the claims of freedom, of wealth, and of virtue, 1 are all duly 
considered. A form of government which is thus a "mean" 
throughout, he designates by the' name of "Polity" or common- 
wealth • appropriating to it the general name, and thus dis- 
tinguishing it as the perfect form, the proper constitution of a 
voXtg, a City or State ; — a city or state being the "end" of the 
Social union. 



1 Nobility, according to Aristotle, is distinct head of claims. According to 

" ancient wealth and virtue;" or "the Laertius, he wrote an express treatise, 

virtue and wealth of ancestors ;" and Tlttf tvyznict}, in one book, 
does not, in his view, therefore, form a 



PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY. 151 

If, indeed, the promotion of virtue were the direct and 
proper object of the Social union, as Aristotle conceives, it 
must be allowed, that that only can be a perfect constitution of 
Society, in which the standard of political rights is the same 
with that of moral right. In this ultimate perfect form, upon 
such a supposition, the science of Politics becomes absorbed in 
that of Ethics. The community in this case acts as the dispenser 
of the laws of morality ; and its honours and its penalties are 
but the channels through which virtue works its own rewards 
of happiness, and vice its own punishments of misery. 1 But 
this is, as was before observed, to intrude on a province far 
beyond that of political science. Schemes for the moral perfec- 
tion of Society belong to the wisdom of a Providence more than 
human, working good out of evil, and, from a boundless survey 
of all the relations of things, accomplishing important results by 
means apparently incompetent or even adverse. Man, in his 
designs of moral good, has only to attend closely to the mechan- 
ism placed under his observation — to use the appointed means — 
to cultivate given powers — to provide against foreseen conse- 
quences ; — and then, having done his part, to trust that the 
happiness, which must surely be the end of the whole under a 
wise and good Providence, will be the final result of his well- 
ordered exertions. Thus, it is manifest to our view, that from 
the ungoverned passions of men evil will ensue. Society, there- 
fore, may lawfully be employed as an instrument for preventing 
this misery, so far as external means can reach it ; and so far, 
too, it may encourage virtue, and indirectly promote human 
happiness. 2 But let it propose to itself * what is best" as the 
distinct aim of its constitution? and it bewilders itself with 
theories, no one of which will probably realize the expectations 
conceived of it ; whilst, on the contrary, some evil must certainly 
ensue from artificial attempts on so large a scale. For it is im- 
possible, as Aristotle himself observes, but that, "from false 

1 Bishop Butler's picture of a per- 2 Polit. i. cap. 2, <p6<ru ph ouv h l^n, 

fectly virtuous kingdom will readily x. t. X. 
occur here. (Analogy, part i. chap. 3.) 



152 ARISTOTLE. 

good in the outset, real evil must at length result." 1 He is quite 
consistent here, however, with the rest of his philosophy. 
Excluding from the course of nature a Providence distinct from 
Nature itself, he proceeded, according to his system, to attribute 
an internal self-adjusting power to Society considered as a work 
of Nature. The maxim, that " Nature does nothing in vain," is 
at the base of his moral and political philosophy, as well as of 
his physical. The perfect polity is an illustration of this maxim. 
It is the perfecting of the self-provisions of Nature in Man con- 
sidered as a Social being. 

The real excellence, however, of Aristotle's theory of the Per- 
fect Polity consists in this ; that, if we admit a Divine Providence, 
to whose foresight we ascribe the final cause or ultimate ten- 
dency of the social union, it is a negative description of the 
policy which should be pursued in every well-constituted state. 
It points out the manner in which the public welfare must be 
sought ; that is, by not making any one of the objects commonly 
pursued in the political world the sole or chief object of pursuit 
to the community. On the hypothesis, that the happiness of 
the world is the care of Him who ordered it, every society should 
be so constituted as that no appointment of Providence be over- 
looked, but every part of the social machinery be brought into 
action. \The love of conquest, for instance, will not be the aim 
of such a state. Such a policy would employ its military re- 
sources only, to the exclusion of its other materials of happiness. 
Aristotle particularly points this out in the instance of Lacede- 
mon, whose whole policy was framed for war ; whereas, as he 
observes, a state should be adapted for living well in peace, and 
enjoying that repose which is the end of its engaging in war. 2 
Nor, again, will the mere accumulation of wealth be the express 
aim of the state in its whole policy. Such a ruling principle 
would tend to degrade the great mass of the population, and to 
undo the very connection itself between the members of the 
community, by pushing the boundaries between the rich and 

1 rolit. iv. cap. 12, v. cap. 1. 2 Ibid. ii. cap. 9., vii. cap. 14. 



PKACTICAL PHILOSOPHY. 153 

poor to tlie extremes of opulence and pauperism ; of which con- 
dition of things the natural result is, the tyranny of an Oligarchy. 
Lastly, if even liberty is made the exclusive aim of state policy, 
unhappiness is the sure result. Whilst the members of the 
community grasp at an unrestrained liberty, they disregard the 
various gradations of society, by which the sphere of human 
duties is enlarged, and the greatest securities against violations 
of liberty are provided ; and thus a wild Democracy usurps the 
place of a just Polity. Now, Aristotle's theory excludes all such 
gross schemes of policy. It admits only the general pursuit of 
the public welfare ; which, like the private happiness sketched 
in his Ethics, is not to be made a distinct object under any 
particular form, but must be the general pursuit of the whole 
organization of the society ; as private happiness is the result of 
the general regulation of all the moral principles. It is true, 
that he supposes a society to constitute itself in order to its own 
moral perfection and happiness ; and herein is the error of his 
theory. But this notion being a substitute in his system for a 
Divine Providence, it did not imply that the individual members 
of the community should propose to themselves, as their direct 
object of pursuit in life, that happiness to which the social 
system, as a whole, should tend. It was to be brought about by 
that mysterious agency which, from not admitting a real Provi- 
dence, he was compelled to ascribe to Nature. 

This is further illustrated in his description of the three 
right forms of government, and the three improper, or deviations 
from the former. He admits that the public welfare may be 
promoted under other forms — under a Monarchy or an Aristo- 
cracy, as well as under " the Polity " or commonwealth. These 
three forms are indeed coincident in principle, according to him ; 
being variations produced by differences in the character of the 
people among whom they arise. 1 The perfect " Polity" presup- 
poses an equality among the members* of the society, — that all 
are capable in turn of governing, as well as of being governed. 

1 Polit. iii. cap. 17. 



154 ARISTOTLE. 

But there may in some cases be marked differences between a 
family, or an individual, or a class of individuals, and the bulk 
of the people ; and in these cases the rule of justice requires 
that there should exist in the former a monarchy, in the latter 
an aristocracy. So far, indeed, does Aristotle carry this principle, 
as to say, that any single person eminent in worth above the 
rest of the community, as one of a more divine nature, ought to 
have entire obedience from the rest, and to be perpetual Sove- 
reign. 1 The three forms, then, of Monarchy, Aristocracy, and 
Commonwealth, are right ; because, being founded on the rela- 
tive merit of the members of each society, and the standard of 
merit being virtue, the rule of justice is maintained in them. 
The public good follows, therefore, not from the ascendancy of 
this or that principle in the government in each case, but from a 
due regard to all subsisting relations in the state. But in the 
corresponding perversions of these right governments — in a 
Tyranny, an Oligarchy, and a Democracy — particular principles 
prevail, and particular interests, accordingly, are consulted, to 
the violation of justice and the sacrifice of public good. 

Aristotle appears the only political theorist among the 
ancients who never lost sight of the moral nature of man in his 
speculations. The systems of other theorists, as Plato, Phaleas 
<if Ch'alcedon, Hippodamus of Miletus, and the constitutions of 
Lacedemon, Crete, and Carthage, for the most part treated 
Human Society merely as a physical mass, capable of being 
moulded into particular forms by the mechanism of external 
circumstances. Aristotle, on the contrary, lays the chief stress 
on the force of " customs, philosophy, and laws," 2 for producing 
the best condition of society. Still as, in his Ethics, in order to 
the development of his theory of the Chief Good of man, he sup- 
poses a condition of human life adequate to the exercise of the 
moral powers ; so, in his Politics, he supposes a concurrence of 
circumstances favourable to the existence of the perfect Polity. 3 
In this theory as in that, there must be no impediment from 

1 Polii. iii. cap. 13, p. 355, Du Val. 2 Ibid. ii. cap. 3. 8 Ibid. vii. cap. 1, 12. 



PEACTIOAL PHILOSOPHY. 155 

without to the operation of the principles. Here, as in the 
Ethics, the production of the desired effect is the combination of 
three principles — Nature, Habit, Eeason. 1 Therefore, also, as 
there must be certain elements of virtue in the heart, in order to 
the moral improvement of an individual, so there must be the 
proper elements of the perfect social life in the community 
where the perfect commonwealth is to be reared. Then, upon 
these natural principles of the head and heart, a course of public 
Education is to proceed, disciplining the members by habit and by 
reason to the perfection of the social character, in a manner analo- 
gous to the discipline by the individual of his own character. 

We find the same fundamental agreement with the moral 
system of the Ethics, in the method of Education proposed by 
Aristotle for the citizens of the perfect Polity. The maturity of 
the intellectual powers is here also to be the end to which the 
system tends. The members of the community are to be trained 
so as to be capable of enjoying the leisure and repose of a peace- 
ful state. This they are to regard as their ultimate proper 
sphere of happiness ; whilst at the same time they are disci- 
plined to the virtues of that active life, by which alone the per- 
manence of their tranquillity can be secured. It is obvious how 
this harmonizes with the doctrine of the Ethics, which sets forth 
the happiness of the Theoretic life as the highest bliss of man's 
nature, but not independently of the practical duties of common 
life. For thus he directs the course of training through which 
the young must pass, to commence with the body ; then to pro- 
ceed to the disposition of the heart, and to end with the intellect ; 
the inferior principles being disciplined in subordination to, and 
with reference to the higher. Even the sports of childhood were 
not neglected by him in the scale of Education. He would fur- 
ther provide for the best bodily constitution of the citizen, by 
regulating the period of marriages with a view to a healthy off- 
spring, and the care of the mothers during pregnancy. Here, 
indeed, we are shocked at finding in such an author a sanction 

1 Polit. vii. cap. 13. 



156 ARISTOTLE. 

to infanticide and abortion. The law, he says, should forbid the 
nurturing of the maimed ; 2 and where a check to population is 
required, abortion should be produced before the quickening of 
the infant ; no law of morality, he thinks, forbidding it at this 
period. 2 These are striking instances of the infirmity of a philo- 
sophy, which substitutes an intrinsic agency in Nature for the 
counsels of an intelligent Divine Agent working on Nature. 
According to such a philosophy, everything adverse to the perfec- 
tion of Nature is a stumbling-block. On the hypothesis of 
a Providence, the good and the evil may be contemplated 
with equal assurance that " the best " will in the end prevail. 
In the former case human reason removes, suppresses, destroys ; 
in the latter it moderates, counteracts, overrules ; doing nothing 
with rash violence, but gently conspiring with the appointed 
course of things, in opening a way for good out of the evil. In 
Aristotle, the immoralities here noticed are, moreover, at direct 
variance with the precepts and spirit of his Moral philosophy. 

Again, the same moral complexion characterizes both the 
public and private discipline of the philosopher. The honour- 
able, rb xuXov, predominates over both. By this standard every 
institution, whether of bodily or mental exercise, is to be regu- 
lated. No illiberal arts, such as required manual rather than 
intellectual skill, are to be taught. Not even are the liberal 
sciences to be pursued excessively, or with exclusive devotion 
to any particular ones, or with mercenary views ; the occupation 
of leisure being the end proposed by the system of education. 
What was useful or necessary was to be learned, but in sub- 
serviency to the honourable ; and the honourable rather than 
the useful or necessary. 3 Hence the stress laid by Aristotle 
on the Arts of Painting and Music. It was, in the result, a 
general cultivation of the mind by literature combined with 
moral discipline, and not the storing it with particular sciences, 
which his system of education contemplated. He saw that the 

spoilt. Vll. cap. 16, iirrco vo/un; ftyiVsv kki C m ^ v > i/u-Touiff^ai $u rriv oifj(.(->> utriv, 
TiTyipw/ttvov rpitp&iv. x. r. X. 



Ibid. vii. 16, vgiv oc't'trfwriv iyytvio-fai 3 Ibid. vii. cap. 14. 



PRACTICAL PHILOSOPEY. 157 

tendency of particular studies was to contract the mental powers 
to that particular range of vision to which they were confined : 
whereas he sought rather to impart a largeness and masculine 
strength to the understanding, commensurate with the varied 
demands of the world in which human life is cast. It was what 
we should express by the education of the accomplished gentle- 
man, — of one who, exempt from the drudgery of life, and having 
his actions freely at his own disposal, might be qualified for the 
highest functions to which Nature has destined man in forming 
him a moral and social being. For it should be observed, that 
Aristotle throughout supposes an entire immunity from all 
servile employments, both to the happy man and the happy 
citizen. 1 According to his view, a large proportion of mankind 
are physically incapable, either of the happiness of moral beings, 
or of that of social life. Persons so imperfectly constituted he 
conceives to be wholly dependent on others, and to be by nature 
relative beings or slaves ; their proper nature being comprized in 
this relationship of dependence. 2 To this class, accordingly, he 
would commit all the labours of agriculture, of the mechanical 
arts, and the market, and all menial offices : whilst others, more 
gifted by nature, enjoy leisure for the proper duties of man, in 
the various relations of a moral and social being. 3 

The justification of the condition of slavery is thus rested by 
Aristotle on abstract grounds. He viewed it as an institution 
of nature; differing in this from other philosophers, and from 
the popular notion of his own countrymen, who either founded 
it on the right of conquest, or on an assumed original difference 
between Greek and Barbarian. This was a far more liberal 
view of the subject than that which prevailed generally in his 
time. For it implied, that no one had a right to retain another 
as his slave who was not thus physically dependent. Every one 
had a right to be free, who was capable of enjoying freedom in 
the performance of the duties for which man in his perfection 
was constituted. This doctrine further imposed on the master 

1 Eth. Nic. x. cap. 6, 7 ; Polit. iii. cap. 6, iv. 4. 
2 Polit. i. cap. 3, 6. 8 Hid. vii. cap. 9, 10. 



158 ARISTOTLE. 

a strict moral attention to his slave. The slave was thrown on 
him not only for support, but for direction in his duties. 1 

That Eeligion should have formed no part of the business of 
Education in his system, was further consistent with his Ethics. 
The Moral xaXbv terminated in the perfect fulfilment of all those 
relations in which man was placed as a being of this world. 
It was heightened by the consideration, that Gods might delight 
in looking down on such perfection, and that in its highest state 
it resembled the excellence of divinity. But it did not strike 
its roots into, or draw its nourishment from, Eeligion. Nor did 
the %aXh of Social life. The accomplished citizen might be 
taught to contemplate himself in the thoughtful activity of a 
philosophical leisure, as holding a dignified station among men, 
analogous to the divine principles which maintain the order of 
the universe. 2 But there was no connection between his social 
virtues and his religious system. The religious colouring was 
only the borrowed light of Philosophy. All active Eeligion was 
consigned to the instrumentality of a particular body of men — 
the Priests. The obligatory force of Eeligion was recognized ; 
but, being lodged in an external establishment, as its depository 
and sanctuary, reverence was sought for it by outward bo ds of 
respect, by the privileges of the order to whose care it was 
intrusted, and the splendour of its public spectacles. Aristotle, 
accordingly, treats the subject merely as one of policy. He 
observes, that no one of the rank of a mechanic or peasant 
should be appointed a Priest, since it was necessary that the 
gods should be honoured by the citizens ; and he points out the 
importance of the religious character to the absolute sovereign 
of a state, in order to the obedience of the subject. 3 

Aristotle's account of his theoretic Polity leaves off abruptly 



1 Polit. i. cap. 13, vovhr riov ykg agendum, esse natum, quasi mortalem 
/u,cixxov rob; lobXovs n robs TaT^ag. Deurn." (Cicero De Fin. ii. cap. 13.) 

2 Ibid. vii. cap. 3, ^z oX V 7"? «■* '° ^s 3 Ibid. v. 11, vii. 9. In (Econom. i. 
'i%oi kxXus, x«i tZ; o boo-po;, oig otx. tlffh 5 (probably the work of his disciple 
i?wrigixxi Tgci?iis -ruga. <r«$ oixa'as rus Theophrastus), slaves are spoken of as 
aiiTuv. " Sic hominem ad duas res, ut the class for whom especially sacrifices 
ait Aristoteles, ad intelligendum et and festivities should be appointed. 



PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY. 159 

at the end of the 8th book; and the treatise is thus, as now 
extant, an imperfect development of his views. But the theory 
of the Perfect Polity is only a part of the very valuable materials 
of the Politics. The work embraces a wide survey of the social 
nature of man. Throughout, indeed, it may be studied as 
elements of the philosophy of History. It lays open the princi- 
ples of preservation and decay inherent in the different consti- 
tutions, and points out the common principles on which the 
maintenance of civil order, under any form whatever, must 
essentially depend. 

Nor has the study which now obtains the name of Political 
Economy been overlooked by Aristotle. The nature of Money, 
and of the wealth to which it has given rise, particularly 
attracted his attention. It may suffice to shew how accurately 
he thought on the subject, to observe that his account of the 
origin of Money, — tracing it to its service, as a common measure 
of value in exchanges, and as a conventional substitute for a 
demand for commodities, — has been adopted by the author of 
the celebrated work, The Wealth of Nations} 

On the whole, justly to appreciate the labours of Aristotle in 
Political Science, we should compare them with the elaborate 
and eloquent works of Plato on the same subject — the Dialogues 
entitled The Republic and The Laivs, and especially The Republic. 
Aristotle evidently had this work before him in the composition 
of his own, and in several places has made express allusions 
to it. His two treatises of the Nicomachean Ethics and the 
Politics, convey incidentally a refutation of the errors in moral 
and political philosophy contained in Plato's speculations. It 
is but a small portion of Plato's Republic which belongs to 
Politics ; the bulk of it being devoted to moral and metaphysical 
discussions. Aristotle's more exact philosophy discriminates the 
subjects strangely though beautifully blended in that episodic 
work. He has taken much of what is excellent in the treatises 
of Plato into his own ; but at the same time has the merit of 
originality, in the correction and enlargement, as well as 

1 Polit. i. 9 ; Eih. Nic. v. 5. Adam Smith's Wealth of Xations, book i. chap. 5. 



160 ARISTOTLE. 

systematic arrangement, of the principles there diffusely de- 
livered. He acknowledges, referring to the Dialogues of Plato, 
that all the discourses of Socrates have in them " the admirable, 
and the exquisite, and the inventive, and the searching ;" whilst 
he claims a right to discuss them, on the ground, that " for every- 
thing in them to be right was perhaps difficult." 1 

Plato's theory was metaphysical throughout. That oneness 
which he sought to establish in his perfect Eepublic was an 
abstract unity, the realizing of which constituted, in his view, 
the best Polity ; as the realizing of the one self-existent " idea " 
of good constituted the morality of actions. Thus, his Magis- 
trates 'are philosophers, and his Virtue is wisdom. A character, 
on the other hand, decidedly practical, pervades the moral and 
political disquisitions of Aristotle. The}/ are immediately 
adapted to the actual needs of man. They have not, on this very 
account, that peculiar charm which belongs to Plato's writings. 
The imaginative perfection shadowed out by Plato, imparts an inte- 
rest even to his most subtile disputations, and engages the feelings 
of the reader, amidst the reluctance of his judgment. And thus 
his works tend to a practical effect, in opposition to their specu- 
lative character. But Aristotle, throughout intent on the business 
of human life, forbears to seize the imagination with romantic 
pictures of excellence, either in man individually, or in society. 
He points out such happiness as is attainable, or at least to 
which human endeavours may reasonably be directed, in that 
condition of the world in which man has been placed. His 
discussions on moral subjects are accurate observations, and 
powerful reasonings, applied to things as they are. But this 
character renders them of more general use than Plato's specula- 
tions. The man of genius and of sensibility might feel a 
stronger stimulant to moral and social energies from the study 
of the animated pages of the Republic. But the generality of 
mankind would undoubtedly obtain a more ready help in the 
duties of life, from the practical principles of conduct delivered 
in the less ambitious philosophy of Aristotle. 

1 Pollt. ii. 6. To jU.lv oZv 9TSBITT0V MJ TO XOff^OV, XOCi TO XOtlVOTOf&OV, xa) TO 

'i^ovfi ird.vri; o! rov Iwxoktou; l.oyoi, ^riT'oTixov' xctku; Ts -—ccvtx, "troo; p^otXt^ov. 



PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY. 161 



CONCLUSION. 

DESIGN OF AEISTOTLE'S PHILOSOPHY — STYLE OF HIS WRITINGS — 
HIS OBSCURITY — METHOD OF DISCUSSION — ORIGINALITY. 

From the review which has been taken of the extant writings 
of Aristotle, it would appear that the great object of the philo- 
sopher was to discipline the mind by a deep and extensive 
course of literature. The various inquiries embraced in those 
writings, — the unwearied research into subjects the most repul- 
sive from their abstruseness, or the most interesting from their 
connection with the feelings and actions of men, — the richness 
of illustration from the volumes of ancient genius, and from 
observations of mankind with which they abound, are so many 
proofs of the noble object proposed in his philosophy. It may 
be fully concluded that it was not the mere sophist of former 
days, or the disputant on any given question, that Aristotle 
aimed to accomplish. His object was, like that of Socrates, to 
render man really wise, by a cultivation of all the moral and 
intellectual powers of the soul ; in order that the great xnoral of 
the whole — the good towards which Nature tends — might be 
realized in each individual so instructed and disciplined. Agree- 
ably to this view is the answer attributed to him, when, on being 
asked what advantage had accrued to him from philosophy, 
he replied, " To do without constraint what some do through the 
fear of the laws." 1 

•""^""Some of his works appear to have been written in the form 
orTMalogue. These were probably of the class called Exoteric ; 
that form being more adapted to the purpose of explanation and 
fuller discussion, — which seem to have been characteristics of 
the Exoteric treatises, in contrast with the concise and sugges- 
tive form of the Esoteric or Acroamatic. Among his works are 
also mentioned Epistles to Philip, to Alexander, Olympias, 
Hephaestion, Antipater, Mentor, Ariston, Themistagoras, Philo- 

1 Diog. Laert. in Aristot. 
M 



162 ARISTOTLE. 

xenus ; besides a collection entitled Epistles of the Selymbrians. 
A hymn in praise of the virtues of his friend Hermias has been 
already noticed ; which formed matter of accusation against him 
on the ground of impiety. It has been preserved by Diogenes 
Laertius. It consists of twenty-three lyric verses, celebrating 
Hermias among the heroes who had sacrificed their lives for the 
cause of virtue. Laertius has also preserved four lines inscribed 
by him on the statue of Hermias erected at Delphi. His 
poetical talent was further displayed in verses addressed to 
Democritus, and in the composition of an elegy ; of both which 
poems the first lines are given by Laertius. The titles of various 
other works, or parts of works, occur in the catalogue of his 
writings. So laborious, and so diversified, were the literary 
pursuits of this great philosopher. These were works, too, 
written, we must remember, not by a sequestered individual, 
enjoying the privacy of a privileged leisure like the Priests of 
Egypt, but amidst the agitation and troubles of Grecian politics, 
or in the courts of princes. We may well, therefore, wonder at 
the abstractedness of mind, the single-hearted zeal of philosophy, 
which thus steadily pursued its course, creating its own leisure, 
and keeping the stillness of its own thoughts. Probably, indeed, 
such writings could hardly have been produced, except with a 
concurrence of such opposite circumstances. They imply at 
once the man of the world, and the retired student, — ample 
opportunities for the contemplation of human nature in the 
various relations of life, familiarity with the thoughts of others 
by reading and conversation, as well as intense private medita- 
tion, that communing with a man's own heart, which alone can 
extort the deep secrets of moral and metaphysical truth. 

The style of his writings bears the impress of his devotion 
to the real business of philosophy. The excellence of his style 
is, we believe, the last thing to attract the notice of his readers ; 
and yet, as a specimen of pure Greek, it is found to stand almost 
unrivalled. The words are selected from the common idiom; 
but they are employed with the utmost propriety ; and by their 
collocation are made further subservient to the perspicuity and 



- 



PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY. 163 

force of his meaning. There is nothing superfluous, nothing- 
intrusive, in his expressions ; but the very ornaments add to the 
terseness of the style. The metaphors and illustrations employed 
are apt and striking analogies, availing as arguments, whilst by 
their simplicity they familiarize the truth to the mind. That 
these excellencies should escape the notice of the reader engaged 
in the matter itself of the author, is a proof of the strict adapta- 
tion of the style to the matter. We can imagine, that to the 
Greek reader nothing could have been easier than to apprehend 
the meaning of the philosopher. To the modern, the necessity 
of studying the language gives an apparent hardness to expres- 
sions, whose propriety depends on an accurate perception of the 
genius of the language. Thus, what was a facility to the ancient 
reader is a difficulty to the modern, until the latter, by study of 
the language, has brought himself as much as possible into the 
situation of the former. This observation will be illustrated by 
a comparison of the style of Plato with that of Aristotle. Plato's 
style, undulating with copiousness of diction, is more attractive 
to the modern reader; his meaning is often more readily appre- 
hended at the first glance, by the number of expressions which 
he crowds on a point, and their accumulated force of explanation. 
But in Aristotle, if we miss the force of a term or a particle, or 
overlook the collocation of the words, we shall sometimes 
entirely pervert his meaning. 1 

There are, however, passages in which Aristotle departs from 
his usual conciseness, and approaches towards the eloquence of 
Plato. The concluding chapters of his Nicomachean Ethics may 
here be particularly pointed out ; or a part of the ninth book of 
that treatise, in which, evidently imitating Plato, he compares 
the tumult of uncontrolled passions to the disturbance of civil 
sedition. There is a dignity and a pathos in these passages, 
controlled by the general character of severe precision belonging 
to his style, yet admirably harmonizing with it. Sometimes, 

1 It is probable that the number of tant being described by trie titles of the 

his distinct works has been made to particular subjects to which they refer, 

appear larger than it really is, by the and thus represented as separate trea- 

circumstance of parts of those now ex- tises. 



164 ARISTOTLE. 

indeed, his style is chargeable with too strict a conciseness, as 
well as, on the other hand, with prolixity. These opposite faults 
are in him the same in principle ; resulting from the pursuit of 
extreme accuracy ; — an error in composition, compared by him- 
self to that illiberality, which consists in too close an attention to 
minute matters in contracts. 1 

Nor can it be denied that there is considerable obscurity in 
the writings of Aristotle. It is important, however, to distinguish 
this obscurity from that of mere style. It is an effect of the 
peculiar design with which he appears to have composed them. 
Some are evidently outlines for the direction of the philosopher 
himself and his disciples in their disputations — notices of points 
of inquiry rather than full discussions of the subjects. This is 
very observable in the Metaphysics, the Nicomachean Ethics, and 
the Rhetoric. Sometimes he contents himself with a reference to 
his exoteric discussions. 2 It is probable that the most important 
works of his philosophy were not published in his lifetime ; and 
that they thus constantly remained by him to receive improve- 
ments which further observation might suggest. This may 
partly account for some abruptness in those treatises. In our 
progress through them, we come to discussions which we had 
not been led to expect by anything previous in the work. The 
seventh book of the Ethics, for instance, appears to have been an 
afterthought ; and so also the eighth and ninth of the same 
treatise. The work might have been regarded as complete in 
itself without them. In the Metaphysics, indeed, we can hardly 
judge what was the exact arrangement of the work ; since it has 
descended to us in an imperfect, irregular form. But there are 
like marks in it of successive additions from the author. 3 The 
fact that the writings of Aristotle were left to Theophrastus, and 
not to his own relatives, would further imply, that they were 
intended primarily for those who had been trained in his school, 

1 Metaph. ii. 3. pixoT; x'oyois. De Ccelo, i. 9, xa.6a.Tip lv 

2 Eth. NlC. i. 13. kiy<<rcii $1 Tip) alrr,; toTs iyxuxXtois <piXo<ro(pyi{*.ei(ri. Eud&ffl, i. 8. 

xa) h toi; l%carepixo7$ kcyei; Kpxovvrws 3 Niebuhr {History of Home, trans, p. 

ew«, xa) %pn<rriov uvroT;. Ibid. vi. 4, 16) remarks this particularly of the 

Titrnvouiv oi Tip) ulruv xai ro?s i^uri- Rhetoric. 



PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY. 165 

and by whom his philosophy would be rightly transmitted. The 
immediate occasion of this reserved mode of writing may have 
been the jealousy of rival philosophers, 1 or the dread of pagan 
intolerance. 

His method of discussion is conformable with the principles 
proposed in his Dialectical treatises. It is throughout a sifting 
of the opinions and questions belonging to the subject of inquiry, 
by examining each in its several points of view, and shewing the 
consequences involved in it. Accordingly, generally, before fully 
stating his own conclusions, he considers what may be urged on 
both sides of the question, putting the objections strongly and 
fairly, and giving the most candid construction to the views of 
his predecessors. 2 The difficulties proposed he sometimes briefly 
removes in passing on, having just glanced at them ; at other 
times he devotes several sentences to their explanation. This, 
which is his method in parts of his system, is only a specimen 
of what is the collective result of the whole. His philosophy, 
dialectically viewed, is an analysis of the theories proposed by 
the philosophers who had preceded him. Consistently with 
this, he commences sometimes with observations on logical 
grounds, or those views of a thing implied in the classifications 
which language expresses ; and afterwards inquires into the 
subject physically or philosophically ; when the discussion pro- 
ceeds on principles of physics or philosophy in general. 3 

With respect to the originality of his writings, there can be 
no doubt that he derived important aid from the labours of his 
predecessors, and especially from those of Plato. An accurate 
examination of his writings will convince the reader that they are 

1 Valerius Maximus, viii. 14, repre- 3 Occasionally he illustrates from ety- 
hends Aristotle's sensitiveness on this mology, as in deducing riOos from 'idos 
point, mentioning his annoyance at the (Eth. Nic. ii. 1), cu<$?o<rv<m from <ra£uv 
authorship of h]s Bhetoric being imputed (ppowo-iv {Eth. Nic. vi. 5). "It is a 
to Theodectes, to whom he had pre- practice with us all," he observes {De 
sented the work for publication, and his Ccelo, ii. 13, p. 467), " to pursue an 
care to assert his right to the treatise inquiry, not as it belongs to the thing, 
in a subsequent work. but relatively to an opponent in argu- 

2 Metaph. iii. 1 ; Topic, i. 2 ; De Ccelo, ment." 
ii. 13, etc. 



166 



ARISTOTLE. 



the productions of one who had deeply drunk of the fountain of 
Plato's inspiration. But they shew, at the same time, such a dis- 
ciple as we may suppose the spirit of Plato would have delighted, 
in ; one who cherished the authority of the preceptor, and yet had 
the courage to love the truth still more ; 1 one who thought it 
necessary to consult what others had said wisely and truly before 
him, and yet would examine a question finally with an inde- 
pendent discriminative judgment. 2 Estimating his philosophy 
thus, we may pronounce it to be truly his own. It was the fruit 
of his own sagacious, penetrating mind. A sufficient proof of 
this is his disagreement with Plato on the theory of Ideas, — the 
Origin of the universe, — and the Immortality of the soul. He 
has been charged, indeed, with invidious opposition to Plato, 
with corruption and misrepresentation of the tenets of his pre- 
decessors. Jewish writers have even absurdly accused him of 
plagiarism from the books of Solomon. 3 But there is no real 
foundation for these charges ; they are at best but surmises ; and 
they are fully contradicted by the internal evidence of the writ- 
ings themselves. 



1 Eih. Nic. i. 6, a/xfoTv yap b'vroiv QiXoiv, 
ocriov vrpon/u-av rhv aXn&nav. This is 
also the sentiment of Plato, Rep. x. 595, 
aXA.' ov yap Tp'o yi rvis aXTjOiiag rif^nr'ios 
av/ip. 

2 De Ccelo, i. 10, to yap igw/awv xara- 



^tzaZ,iffSai ^oxuv, x. r. X. ; JPolit. ii. 6 ; 

Metaph. xiv. 8, p. 1002, Du Val. 

3 Brucker, Hist. Crit. Phil. vol. i. p. 
794. This was merely to excuse their 
own adoption of his philosophy, as 
Brucker observes. 



PLATO. 



The birth of Plato is nearly coincident with that great epoch of 
Grecian history, the commencement of the Pelopennesian war. 
In the first year of that war, the Athenians, having ejected the 
nnhappy people of iEgina, apportioned the island amongst colo- 
nists from themselves. 1 Amongst these Athenian occupants were 
Aristo, and Perictione or Potona, as she is also called, the father 
and mother of Plato. Their residence, however, in the island 
was not permanent nor even long, as the intrusive colony was in 
its turn ejected by the Lacedaemonians, on which occasion his 
parents returned to Athens. 2 It was during this interval, and 
in the year 429 B.C., that the philosopher was born. 3 

From these circumstances, it has been commonly supposed 
that Plato was born in iEgina. They are not, however, sufficient 
to establish such a conclusion. For a colonization of the kind here 
described did not necessarily imply residence on the part of those 
persons to whom the lands were allotted. 4 Nor is the fact of the 
recovery of the island by the Lacedaemonians from the hands of 
the Athenians, mentioned by the contemporary historian. iEgina 
was still in the occupation of the Athenians in the fifth year of the 
Peloponnesian war ; 5 and in the eighth year of the war we find 
that the poor exiles, who had meanwhile obtained a refuge at 
Thyrea, were there cruelly exterminated by the Athenians. 6 On 
the whole, it seems more probable, from the constant designation 
of Plato as " the Athenian," without any other addition, though 

1 Thucyd. ii. 27. 4 Tlmcyd. iii. 50. 

2 Diog. Laert, in Vit. Plat. s Ibid, iii. 72. 

3 Ibid. ° Ibid, iv. 56, 57. 



168 PLATO. 

this alone, it must be allowed, is not decisive of the fact, that 
Athens itself may claim the honour of having been his birthplace. 

It is remarkable that his proper name was not that which 
his fame has immortalized, but Aristocles, after his paternal 
grandfather. 1 The name of Plato is said to have been given to 
him by the person who was his master in the exercises of the 
gymnasium, as characteristic of his athletic frame in his youth. 2 
In this way, being familiarly applied to him, it gradually pre- 
vailed, to the entire disuse of his family name. 

The philosopher was connected by descent w 7 ith the ancient 
worthies of Athens ; on his mother's side with Solon, and on his 
father's with the patriot king Codrus. 3 And thus, according to 
the notions of nobility prevalent amongst the Greeks, 4 he could 
trace up the honours of his parentage to a divine founder, in the 
person of the god Neptune. 

A circumstance is related of his infancy, which, though ob- 
viously fabulous, cannot properly be omitted in his biography, 
as a pleasing and appropriate tribute of the imaginative genius 
of the Greeks to their poet-philosopher. Whilst he was sleeping 
when a babe, on Mount Hymettus, in a bower of myrtles, during 
the performance of a sacrifice by his parents to the muses and 
^he nymphs, bees, it is said, lighted on him and dropped honey on 
Jiis lips, thus giving an evident augury of that peculiar sweet- 
ness of style by which his eloquence would be distinguished. 5 

For the same reason, a similar fancy, which has thrown a 
poetical ornament over the account of his first devotion to philo- 
sophy, must not be passed over in silence. Socrates, it is 
related, was apprized beforehand, in a dream, of the first visit of 
the gifted pupil, who was destined to carry philosophy forth on 

1 Aristocles was also a Spartan name, 8 His family also is shewn to have 
being the name of the brother of the been of rank, from its connection with 
king Pleistoanax. Thucyd. v. 17. some of "the Thirty," called "the 

2 As derived from tt\clt}js, broad. La- Thirty Tyrants," established at Athens 
ertius gives this explanation, which Se- by the Lacedaemonians. See Plat. Ep. 
neca also adopts {Epist. lviii. 27), but vii. 



says others interpreted the name as de- 
noting a broad forehead; others, as cha- 



See Herodot. Euterp. 143. 



racteristic of his style of eloquence. B Cicero, De Divin. i. 36. 



HIS LIFE. 169 

the wings of his genius to its boldest flights. Socrates was tell- 
ing his dream to some persons around him, how he seemed to 
see a young swan coming from an altar in the grove of Acadenius, 
and first nestling in his bosom, then soaring up on high, and 
singing sweetly as it rose in the air, when Aristo presented him- 
self, leading his son Plato, whom he committed to the instruction 
of the sage. Socrates, it is added, struck by the coincidence, 
immediately recognized the fulfilment of his dream, and wel- 
comed Plato as the young swan from the altar, represented to 
him in the vision. 

The accounts of his early education, to which we should 
naturally have looked with great interest, are extremely meagre. 
We only know by general notices that he passed through the 
usual course of education adopted amongst the higher classes of 
the Greeks. That education was directed to the cultivation at 
once of the powers of the mind and of the body, under the two 
great divisions of literature and gymnastics. The youth was 
delivered to the charge of the grammarian, the teacher of music, 
and the trainer. Prom the grammarian he learned the art of 
reading and writing his own language, and a knowledge of its 
authors, especially its poets ; from the teacher of music, skill in 
performing on the lyre and the flute, together with the principles 
of the science of music ; from the trainer he acquired strength 
and expertness in the several exercises of wrestling, and boxing, 
and running, by which it was intended not only to mature the 
powers of the body, but to qualify the youth for attaining emi- 
nence at the public games. These were the schoolmasters of the 
accomplished Athenian, and with these he was occupied until he 
had reached about his twentieth year. Accordingly the names have 
been transmitted to us of those who discharged these offices for 
Plato ; of Dionysius, 1 as the grammarian under whom he learned 
the elements of that command over his own language, and its lite- 
rary resources, which his matured eloquence so richly displayed ; 
of Draco of Athens, and Metellus of Agrigentum, as his masters 
in music ; and of Aristo the Argive, as his master in gymnastics. 

1 Mentioned by Plato in Amatores, and by Aristotle, Top. vi. 10. 



170 PLATO. 

It is added that he also studied painting ; but the name has not 
been given of any individual who acted as his preceptor in the art. 

In evidence of his great proficiency in these early studies, it 
has been stated that he gave specimens of his genius in every 
department of poetical composition ; that in epic poetry he 
laboured after the highest excellence, and only abandoned the 
attempt on comparing his efforts with the poems of Homer, and 
despairing of reaching so high a standard ; that in dramatic 
poetry, he had prepared a tetralogy, the four plays usually re- 
quired of an author in order to competing for the prize at the 
festival of Bacchus, but changed his purpose only the day be- 
fore the exhibition, in consequence of impressions received from 
Socrates. And even in gymnastics excellence has been claimed 
for him ; since it has been asserted that he actually entered the 
lists at the Isthmian games. 

Whatever credit we may give to these particulars, there can 
be no doubt, that so inquisitive a mind as that of Plato, and so 
resolute a spirit in the prosecution of its undertakings, received 
the full benefit of this preliminary culture ; and that he was 
thus amply prepared for entering on the severer discipline of 
those pursuits which engaged him when he became a hearer of 
Socrates. 

This preliminary education, in fact, was very imperfect as a 
discipline of the mind. It gave the youth a forwardness and 
fluency of knowledge, so that he was fain to fancy himself, when 
he had scarcely attained manhood, equal to undertake affairs of 
state, and to serve the highest offices of the government. But it 
did not form his mind or character. He had yet to learn the 
nature of man ; to study the principles of ethics and politics. 
This task of instruction devolved on the sophist or the philo- 
sopher (as the same person was at first indifferently called), into 
whose hands the Greek youth was now delivered. 

Plato, accordingly, at the age of twenty years, began to be a 
regular attendant on the lessons of Socrates. The reputation of 
Socrates as a teacher in this higher walk of education, now 
eclipsed that of all other professors of philosophy. He had at 



HIS LIFE. 171 

once exposed the incompetence of the Sophists who preceded 
him, and superseded them in their office. Plato would be con- 
ducted to him by his father, as the account states he was, very 
much in the way which is depicted under caricature by the 
comic poet, 1 as to the most distinguished master of the day, to 
be qualified for taking on him those public duties to which every 
citizen of Athens might be called ; to enable him to distinguish 
himself in counsel and argument, and obtain influence and im- 
portance in society. From the numbers that resorted to Socrates, 
as well as to the Sophists before him, it is plain that, to ob- 
tain instruction in Philosophy for its own sake, or to become 
philosophers themselves, was not the object with which he was 
sought by the generality. Here and there the spark fell on a 
kindred genius, and lighted up a flame of philosophy in the 
breast of a disciple. Thus from the school of Socrates came the 
founders of several other schools ; and, on the whole, a greater 
impulse was given by his teaching to the study of Philosophy 
than had ever been felt before in Greece. Still, as Socrates him- 
self did not profess to teach his hearers wisdom, so neither did 
they in general come to him as learners of wisdom, or as actuated 
by the pure love of wisdom, but to acquire practical information 
which their previous studies had not given them. We may 
imagine such a disciple as Plato first presenting himself amongst 
the multitude of hearers ; how he would be struck, on the first 
observation of the extraordinary manner of Socrates, especially 
at finding the very person to whom he came to be taught pro- 
fessing that "he knew nothing;" and that he was only wiser 
than other men on this account ; that, whilst others knew not 
and presumed they knew, he neither knew nor presumed that he 
knew. The interest of such a mind as Plato's could not but be 
powerfully called forth by so strange an avowal on the part of a 
man whom he had been led to look up to as the wisest of men. 
To him it must naturally have prompted the questions, what 
Philosophy might be ; what the nature and condition of Man ; 
what the criteria of truth and falsehood ; and thus have firmly 

1 Aristoph. Nubes. 



172 PLATO. 

laid hold of those tendencies to speculation which we see fully 
developed in the mature fruits of his genius. Again and again 
he is present at the searching investigations carried on in the 
discussions of which Socrates is the leader ; soon he is himself 
interrogated by Socrates ; and we cannot doubt that he is thence- 
forward irrevocably become, not the disciple of Socrates only, 
but the disciple and votary of Philosophy. 

That Plato was thus won over to Philosophy from an early 
period of his life, is evident from the statement of Aristotle 
respecting him, that " from his youth he had been conversant 
with Cratylus, and the opinions of Heraclitus," 1 and from the 
indications in two at least of his dialogues (and these supposed to 
be the earliest in the date of their composition, as written indeed 
during the lifetime of Socrates), the Phwdrus and the Lysis, of 
his early acquaintance with Pythagorean notions. 

There seems, too, but little room to doubt that he had begun 
at the same time to study the doctrines of the Ionic school under 
Hermogenes, as well as those of Parmenides and Zeno. For 
what he puts into the mouth of Socrates in the Phcedo 2 respect- 
ing Anaxagoras, is probably .(as Socrates himself was known to 
have had a strong aversion to physical science) the expression of 
his own disappointment and dissatisfaction at the outset of his 
stludies, in the conclusions of the school, of which Anaxagoras 
was then the chief - authority. Of Parmenides, again, he more 
than once speaks in terms of enthusiasm, as of a name with 
which he had very early associations of reverence ; 3 here, as an 
instance of Anaxagoras, we are disposed to think, depicting in 
the person of Socrates, a portion of the history of his own mind. 

Judging indeed from the tenor of his writings, we should 
conclude that his curiosity was excited, from a very early period, 
to explore the whole field of philosophy ; and that, so far from 

1 Aristot. Metaph. i. 3. /not (palveraL rb rod 'Oparjpov, aldolbs t£ 

Phcecl. pp. 220-225, ed. Bip. jxoi elvai ajxa detvbs re' avp,Trpoaip.i^a yap 

3 M.£\ht<70v fxkv ical roiis &\\ovs, ot &> 5^ T <2 avdpl, wdvv j^os, irdvv irpeeguTrj- 

cards Xtyovai rb irdv, alaxwbuevos p,r] nal p,oi icpdprj /3ct^os tl ix eLV Tra-vrdiraaL 

(j)opTLK&s (TKoirQp,€v, 7)ttou alffx^ofiai yevvaiov. (Thccetet. pp. 137, 138. Par- 

t) ha 6vra HappLevLdrjv. llapp.eutdr)s 5e menid. p. 72.) 



HIS LIFE. 173 

resting on what lie learned from Socrates himself, he applied 
the lessons of Socrates to the extending and perfecting those 
researches which he was carrying on at the same time, by means 
of books, or oral instrnction from others. 1 Socrates was to him 
the interpreter, and commentator, and critic, of the various 
philosophical studies in which he was engaged. For this is the 
view which he has given ns of Socrates in his Dialogues. 
Socrates there seldom or never appears as a didactic expounder 
of truth. He is presented as the critic of opinions and doctrines 
and systems, and the judge to whom everything is to be sub- 
mitted for approval or rejection, or modification, as the case 
may be. 

Indeed, so exuberant and energetic a mind could not have 
been satisfied with being simply a learner in any school. It 
would eagerly seek the means of comparing system with system, 
and of examining into points of agreement or disagreement in 
the theories proposed. The doubts raised by Socrates, the hints 
thrown out by him, the conclusions to which he pointed, but 
which he yet left unconcluded, would to such a mind seem 
as so many points of departure for its own excursions. They 
naturally suggest that much more must be done than merely to 
take up what has been said by Socrates, in order to work out, or 
even rightly to conceive, what had fallen from his lips. For the 
conversations of Socrates were not framed, to convey positive 
instruction, so much as to set the mind of the hearer thinking, 
and to provoke further inquiry. In the living pictures of them 
which Plato has drawn, they leave off just at the point, where 
we expect the teacher would proceed to speak out more dis- 
tinctly, and tell us precisely what his view of the subject is. 
If these pictures represent, (as we may reasonably believe they 
do), the impressions received by Plato from the conversations of 

1 This evident early devotion of Plato which has been applied to other philo- 

to the pursuit of his whole life, argues sophers. He has also been absurdly re- 

the mere calumny of that statement presented as present at the battles of 

which represents him to have at first Tanagra and Delium, when he was, in 

sought his fortune by the profession of truth, a mere child, 
arms. The calumny is a current one, 



174 PLATO. 

Socrates, what stimulants to inquiry must lie not have felt in 
the several particulars which he has so forcibly touched, — in the 
mingled lights and shadows of the scenes in which the great 
master occupies the foreground. Well therefore may we con- 
ceive that, at the time when he enjoyed the guidance, and 
control, and encouragement of Socrates, he was laying a broad 
foundation of erudition for that vast and richly-ornamented 
fabric of philosophy which the existing monuments of his genius 
exhibit. 

From Socrates himself, this demand of the inquisitive hearer 
could evidently not be supplied. Socrates was deficient in 
erudition properly so called. He had studied men rather than 
books. His wisdom consisted of deep and extensive observation 
accurately generalized, drawn from passing things, and capable 
accordingly of ready application to the same course of things ; 
forcibly convincing his hearers by the point and propriety with 
which it met each occasion, and giving experimental proof 
of its soundness and truth. Erudition, accordingly, was to 
be sought elsewhere; and Plato therefore supplied this need 
from other sources, infusing it into, and blending it with Iris 
own speculations, whilst the Socratic spirit mellows the whole 
mass, and gives unity to the composition. 

The death of Socrates — over which how his disciples mourned, 
appears in that affecting account of the last moments of their 
loved master, consecrated to his memory by the genius of Plato, 
the Dialogue of the Phcedo — naturally excited alarms for their 
own safety amongst those who had been conspicuous among his 
associates. They saw, by the violent extremity to which the 
spirit of intolerance had proceeded, unchecked by any feeling of 
humanity or regard for truth, that no wisdom, or gentleness, or 
benevolence of character could be a security against the deadly 
hatred of jealousy. They found that priestcraft could stoop to 
employ any instruments, however mean, for the accomplishment 
of its vengeance ; that it could instigate the actor on the scene 
of civil affairs to do its work of destruction, whilst the prompter 
of the mischief wore the mask of concern for the public good, 



HIS LIFE. 175 

and arrogated the merit of upholding the cause of religious truth. 
Persecution has ever been the same. Its essential features are 
vices of the human heart, not of any particular system of 
religion. "We find it, accordingly, in several recorded instances 
in the heathen world, displaying itself very nearly as in the 
dark times of anti-Christian corruption. Athens itself had 
already furnished examples of its operation. In particular, the 
case of Anaxagoras had been a striking illustration. When 
not even the power and the eloquence of Pericles could save 
Anaxagoras from a prison? and expulsion from Athens, on 
account of his physical speculations, — the very philosopher 
whose system of physics raised an insuperable barrier against 
atheism, by demonstrating the supremacy of mind, — it was but 
too evident that there was a mysterious agency working in the 
heart of society, like secret fires in the depths of the earth, 
capable of awing and paralyzing every other power that might 
rise up against it. 

A more recent experience of the same truth, within the 
memory of the youngest disciple of Socrates, was in the dark 
proceedings consequent on the mutilation of the Herrnse, the 
rude images of Mercury erected in the vestibules of private 
houses as well as in the sacred places of Athens, and on the 
discovery of the profanation of the Eleusinian mysteries by the 
mock representation of them in private houses. 1 The secret 
information on which those proceedings were carried on ; the 
indifference shewn at the period of alarm to everything else, 
even on an occasion of great public interest, but the vindication 
of the popular superstition ; the effect which the charge of being 
implicated in these outrages had in checking the career of 
Alcibiades at the moment of his triumph over his political 
opponents; all shewed, that it was a vain hope to resist the 
secret arbiters of public opinion on questions of religion. Then 
came the fearful consummation of this vengeance in the death 
of Socrates by the poisoned cup ; leaving no doubt in the minds 

1 The performance of religious rites in private houses is forbidden in Plato's 
Dialogue on Laws, x. p. 117, ed. Bip. 



176 PLATO. 

of any, that they who would follow his example in boldly and 
honestly inquiring into current opinions, and declaring their 
convictions of the truth on matters affecting the conduct of men, 
must either prepare themselves for exile (which alone was a 
great punishment in the ancient world), 1 or drink the hemlock. 

Socrates himself had the courage to take the latter part of 
the alternative. To him it was the natural termination of that 
energetic course which he had from the first adopted. He would, 
otherwise, have unsaid all his teaching ; he would have practically 
recanted the strong language in which he had, through all his 
life, been discoursing of the worthlessness of the body and of the 
present life, and of the immortality and perfection of the soul. 
His philosophy, and the sense of the dignity of his character and 
position, kept him immured in his prison, and riveted the chains 
on his limbs, far more than the condemnation of his judges or 
the strength of the iron with which he was bound. For, as he 
says of himself, in the words in which Plato has expressed his 
sentiments, " these sinews and bones would long ago have been 
either about Megara or the Boeotians, had I not thought it more 
just and more honourable, instead of flight, to submit to the 
judgment of the state." 2 

But this was not the case with the hearers of Socrates. 
They were not, like him, placed in a commanding post, from 
which they could not retreat without being stigmatized as deserters 
of their profession, and betrayers of the truth. They might with 
honour and propriety consult for their safety. Whilst, therefore, 
as is probable, the bulk of those who had attended on the teach- 
ing of Socrates simply withdrew from public notice, and sought 
their homes at Athens or elsewhere, the principal disciples of 
the school — those who were most known as followers and 
admirers of Socrates — left Athens, and sought an asylum for 
themselves and for philosophy at Megara. 



1 Cicero says of exile, endeavouring demum a perpetua percgrinatione dif- 

to reconcile the feelings to it, "jam fert?" (Tascul. Qucest. v. 37.) 

vero exilium, si rerum naturam, non 2 See Phcedo, Op. I., p. 224, ed. Bip. ; 

ignominiam nominis qurorimus, quantum also Crito, throughout. 



HIS LIFE. 177 

Amongst those whom Socrates drew around him were several 
individuals of mature age, already trained in some sect of philo- 
sophy, and eminent in their own walk of science, yet desirous 
of availing themselves of the far-famed wisdom of the sage of 
Athens. Of this class was Euclid, the dialectician, of Megara, 
from whom the Megaric school derives its existence and cele- 
brity. 1 As a disciple, Euclid belonged to the Eleatic school, 
and, trained by Zeno, the great master of dialectic before him, 
had made that science his especial study. He had shewn a 
singular zeal in attending on the teaching of Socrates ; for he 
continued to resort to him even after the passing of the Athenian 
decree by which Megarians were excluded, under the penalty of 
death, from the harbours in the Athenian empire, and from the 
agora of Athens itself. For this purpose, he would set out from 
his home at nightfall, a journey of more than twenty miles, — 
such was the distance from Megara to Athens, — assuming the 
disguise of female attire that he might enter the city unnoticed. 2 
His conduct on the occasion of the dispersion of the school of 
Socrates corresponded with this zeal. He received the members 
of the school with open arms, and gave them a home with him 
at Megara. There, for a time at least, they gathered themselves, 
in shelter from the storm which had driven them from Athens. 
But the school, in fact, was broken up. It had subsisted and 
been held together by the personal influence of Socrates himself, 
and with him its principle of vitality, as a body, was gone. He 
had not laboured to establish a sect or a theory ; and he left, 
therefore, no particular symbol of union around which a party 
might be formed. He was himself the principle and bond of 
union to his disciples; bringing together around him the pro- 
fessors and disciples of every different sect. There was yet to 
arise out of his society one who, richly imbued with his teaching 
and method, should rekindle the extinct school with his own 
spirit, and bid it live again in its genuine offspring ; and that 
individual was Plato. But the times were not yet ripe for this. 

1 Euclid the mathematician flourished 2 Thucyd. i. 139; Aul. Gel). JSFoct. 

about a century after him. Att. vi. 10. 

N 



178 PLATO. 

In the meantime, Plato was destined to spend several years 
in journeying from place to place, at a distance from the past 
and the future scene of his philosophical labours. These were 
doubtless years of great importance to him, for the perfect 
formation of the peculiar character of his philosophy. In the 
course of them, we find him visiting Megara, Cyrene, the Greek 
settlements on the coasts of Italy, Sicily, Egypt, " exploring (as 
Cicero says of him in oratorical language) the remotest lands/' 1 
after the manner of Solon and Pythagoras, and other wise men 
before him, who had enlarged their minds by contemplations 
pursued in foreign travel. Thus did he singularly combine in 
his studies the more ancient with the Socratic mode of philoso- 
phizing. The method of Socrates was exclusively domestic. He 
studied mankind within a small compass (the circle of Athens 
itself), only with a more accurate and searching eye than any 
one had ever done before him ; and therefore drew sound general 
conclusions from his observations within that range of view. 
He evidently judged it better thus to restrict the attention, and 
require men to investigate closely what lay before them, than to 
encourage them to indulge the prevailing habit of more diffusive 
and vague observation. This is told us in other words by Plato 
himself; where he introduces Socrates as a stranger even to the 
beautiful scenery in the immediate neighbourhood of Athens, 
and as one who appeared never to have been out of the walls of 
the city ; and as owning that, in his fondness for moral study, 
he was content to learn of the men in the city, who could teach 
him what the fields and the trees could not. 2 But this method, 
good as a foundation, and necessary as a corrective of desultory 
and superficial habits of thought and study, was not sufficient 
for the requirements of Plato's mind. He observes in one of his 
works, that there is much to be gained from contemplation 
rightly directed in foreign travel both by land and sea; that we 
are not only to look to our own country for examples, but seek 

1 Ultimas terras lustrasse Pythago- eo veniendum judicaverunt. {Tusc. Qu. 
rarn,Democritum,Platonem,accepimus: iv. 19.) 
ubi enim quid esset quod disci posset, ~ Phcedr., p. 287 ; Onto, p. 122. 



HIS LIFE. 179 

in the world at large for specimens of the highest, divine order 
of men, who, though rare, might from time to time be found 
under every form of government; and that no perfect civilization 
can be attained without this means of observation and improve- 
ment. 1 He describes, in fact, the course which he had himself 
pursued, and the benefit which he had found resulting from it. 

Having sojourned for a time at Megara, together with the 
other disciples of Socrates, and probably there, with the assist- 
ance of Euclid, increased his acquaintance with the writings of 
Parmenides and Zeno, as well as studied more intimately the 
dialectic of their school, he appears to have proceeded to Cyrene. 
Cyrene was the home, not only of Aristippus, to whose school it 
afterwards gave its name, but of the venerable Theodoras, the 
most eminent geometrician of his day. Theodoras had been 
occasionally a resident at Athens, and an attendant on the 
teaching of Socrates, whilst he was himself resorted to by the 
Athenian youth for instruction in the science of geometry. 2 
Plato, no doubt, had been amongst those who had thus availed 
themselves of the presence of Theodoras at Athens. His pre- 
dilection for mathematical studies is conspicuous throughout his 
writings. His skill in geometry, in particular, requires no other 
evidence than the fact of his ready solution, in that state of the 
science, of the problem of the Delphic Oracle, which required 
the doubling of the cubic altar at Delos. 3 He has described 
Theodoras as present at Athens at the time when the prosecu- 
tion was instituted against Socrates. 4 He now went to Cyrene, 
probably with a view of following up that course of geometrical 
study which had been so abruptly terminated ; whilst he regained 
also the society of a friend for whom he evidently felt respect 
and admiration. 5 

The course of his travels conducted him to the Greek settle- 

1 De Legib., xii., Op. vol. ix. p. 196, of the Academia, "Let no one enter 
197, ed. Bip. who is not a geometrician," seems to 

2 Plat. Tliecetet., p. 51, 52 ; Xenoph. belong rather to Pythagoras, or perhaps 
Mem. iv. 2, 10. was imitated from the Pythagoreans. 

3 Plutarch. De Socrut. Genio, Op. . ~ 7 , „ 

, ... ooo j -o • i m. i ■ Thecetet. ad fin. 

vol. vm. p. 288, ed Keiske. The inscrip- 
tion said to have been over the portal 5 See Thecetet. throughout. 



180 PLATO. 

ments on the coast of Italy and Sicily, where the colleges of the 
Pythagoreans were established. It may readily be imagined 
with what eager curiosity Plato undertook this voyage, what 
delight he promised himself in seeing the place itself where 
Pythagoras had taught, and in personal conference with the 
living successors of the mystic sage, and in obtaining a greater 
insight into the doctrines of a school which had such charms 
for him. He had much to observe also in the peculiar discip- 
line by which the Pythagoreans were formed into a distinct 
fraternity amongst themselves. Greece Proper had nothing to 
exhibit like this. Por though the different sects of philosophy 
were distinguished there by the names of founders and places, 
they were not held together by any rules of discipline. But the 
Pythagoreans at Tarentum, Crotona, and elsewhere in Magna 
Graacia, had incorporated themselves into synedria or colleges ; 
each individual giving his property in common, and regarding 
the bond of connection with his brethren of the sect as closer 
than the ties of kindred. 1 Associations of this kind must have 
appeared, at the first, as anomalies even to the philosophical 
Athenian, accustomed as he was to regard the free intercourse of 
social life as indispensable to his very existence. 

It has been said that Plato was admitted to the secret dis- 
cipline of the Pythagoreans. Probably he was only received by 
them with great cordiality, and had access to writings and infor- 
mation respecting their doctrines, which might have been denied 
to one, who came less recommended to them by the sincere 
enthusiasm of philosophy, and approximation to their views. 
There are no traces certainly in Iris writings, or elsewhere, of his 
having been a professed Pythagorean ; although he undoubtedly 
was greatly captivated by the Pythagorean doctrines, and has 
introduced them largely into his own speculations. 

Archytas, the greatest name of the Pythagorean school after 
that of Pythagoras himself, was then flourishing at Tarentum. 
It must have been an interesting occasion when there were 

1 See Plato, Rep. x. p. 203 ; ToM). ii. p. 67, iii. p. 142, ed. Spenc. : Jamblich. 
39; Aul. Gell. i. 9 ; Origen. C. Cels. ii. Pyth. Tit. c. 17, p. 154. 



HIS LIFE. 181 

assembled together at Tarentum, 1 as Cicero relates, Pontius the 
Sarnnite, the father of that Pontius who defeated the Eoman 
consul at the Fauces Caudinae ; Archytas the Pythagorean, dis- 
coursing against pleasure ; and Plato the contemplative Athe- 
nian traveller. The very place where they met, — a point of con- 
tact between the old empires of the world, and the rising power 
destined to break them in pieces, — in itself adds to the interest. 
Then the characters of the two philosophers who thus met, 
further arrest our attention : — Archytas, the representative of 
the old traditionary theological systems now moulded into a 
scheme of philosophy and an ascetic discipline of life ; and 
Plato, the accomplished artist-philosopher, who was soon to 
take up the scheme of Philosophy where the Pythagoreans left 
it, and consecrate it by the inspirations of his own genius to an 
eternal empire on the throne of literature : — Archytas, nurtured 
in the reserve and mysticism of the Pythagorean discipline ; 
Plato, formed to busy and importunate discussion by the ever- 
colloquial Socrates, — two philosophers so contrasted with each 
other in many respects, and yet so concordant in their love of 
ancient wisdom and indefatigable research after truth. 

From the Pythagoreans Plato proceeded to Egypt to converse 
with the priests of that ancient land, from which Greece had 
derived her original civilization and science. Since the settle- 
ment of the Greek colony in Egypt by Psammetichus, 2 there had 
existed a regular channel of intercourse between Greece and 
Egypt, and accurate means of information to the Greeks respect- 
ing Egypt, The history of Herodotus must in itself have 
awakened the curiosity of those who had any taste for such in- 
quiries, to know still more of a people from whom Greece had 
already learned so much, and from whom evidently so much 
was to be learned ; and must have stimulated them to avail 
themselves of the existing facilities of gratifying that taste. To 

1 De Senect. c. 12. Cicero says Plato but wo may believe its substantial 

was at Tarentum in the consulship of truth. 

L. Camillus and Appius Claudius. There 2 About b. c. 650. Herodot. Eut&rp. 

appears some inaccuracy in the tradition, 1 54. 



182 PLATO. 

Plato, indeed, if, according to Herodotus, the Greeks derived the 
notion of the immortality of the soul from the Egyptians, who 
were the first, he thinks, to teach it in connection with that of 
the transmigration of souls, 1 a visit to Egypt must have been 
most attractive. Herodotus has given a most instructive and 
interesting view of the impression which such a visit produced 
on his mind. What an animated picture must the still more 
philosophical mind of Plato have presented, of the result of his 
conversation with the priests of Egypt. Though the account of 
his having had the mysterious wisdom of the inscriptions on the 
Hermetic Columns unfolded to him by the priests, and of his 
being instructed in magic, 2 on this occasion, seems without suf- 
ficient authority, there are evident traces of information collected 
in Egypt, throughout his writings, and, so far, it cannot be 
doubted, that this visit was not without its influence on the cha- 
racter of his philosophy. 

Indeed it has been further asserted, that, whilst in Egypt, he 
had access to an existing Greek version of the Old Testament, 
and that to this circumstance we must attribute that purer and 
more elevated theology which his works exhibit, in comparison 
with those of other heathen philosophers. A strange oversight 
in chronology has also attributed to him a personal intercourse 
With the prophet Jeremiah. 3 These statements are obviously 
mere suppositions, by which Christians, over-zealous for Plato's 
philosophy, or rather for that form of it, which it had assumed 
in the school of Alexandria, vindicated their admiration of it, 
whilst they asserted also the originality and supremacy of Scrip- 
ture truth. At the same time, it is indisputable that Judaism 
diffused much religious and moral truth beyond its own pale ; 
and that not only Plato, but the Egyptian priests, his instructors, 

1 Herodot. Euterp. 123. ttiras legere, quae nondum fuerant in 

3 Pliny says that Plato went to Grsecam linguam translate. (Augustin. 

Egypt for the purpose of learning magic. De Civ. Dei, viii. 11.) Clement of 

Hist. Nat. xxxi. c. 1. Alexandria, however, asserts that there 

3 Quapropter in ilia peregrinatione existed a version of the Law prior to 

sum, Plato, nee Hieremiam vidore potuit that of the Septuagint. Strom, i. ; 

tanto ante defunctum, nee easdem scrip- Euseb. Prop. Evan. ix. 6. 



HIS LIFE. 183 

■unconsciously derived much from the inspired sources, in col- 
lecting, under the form of fable, or allegory, or maxim, portions 
of truth which the sacred oracles had scattered around them in 
their transmission. 1 

Having traversed Egypt, where he is said to have assumed 
the disguise of an olive-merchant, in order to journey more 
securely in a country not naturally tolerant of strangers, he pur- 
posed penetrating into Persia and India. But the disturbed 
state of those parts of Asia prevented his fulfilling his inten- 
tions. He returned accordingly to Magna Grsecia, once more to 
enjoy the society of the Pythagoreans. At length, having spent 
several years in these travels, he turned his steps homeward. 
We have no means of ascertaining the exact time which these 
travels occupied, or at what period of his life precisely he under- 
took the office of teacher of Philosophy at Athens. Prom the 
Epistle addressed to the friends of Dion, it appears that he was 
scarcely forty years of age when he first went to Syracuse ; 2 so 
that probably not more than about ten years were taken up in 
his wanderings. 

The visit to Sicily here referred to, had for its object to ex- 
plore the crater of Mount iEtna, and therefore properly belongs 
to that part of his history which we have just been tracing. 
But it had also very important bearings upon the future for- 
tunes, both of himself and many others ; so important, indeed 
that Plutarch, following out a remark which occurs in the sup- 
posed Epistles of Plato, attributes it to a providential arrange- 
ment, in order to the restoration of liberty to the Syracusans. 3 
Por it was at this time that he became acquainted with the elder 
Dionysius, Tyrant of Syracuse, and Dion, whose sister Dionysius 
had married. He reclaimed Dion, who was then quite a youth 
from a life of vicious indulgence, to habits of sobriety, and in- 
spired him with an ardent love of Philosophy Thus began an 



1 Hence it was said by Numenius the 2 b. c. 389. Ep. vii. p. 93, ed. Bip. 
Pythagorean, tl yap eari HXdriov, -fy 

Months arTidfav, " What is Plato, but 3 Plutarch in Dion. Op. vol. v. 

Moses speaking in Attic idiom." 262, ed. Reiske. 



184 PLATO. 

intimate friendship between the philosopher and Dion, which 
subsisted unimpaired until the tragical death of 'the latter. 

Through the influence of Dion, the Tyrant Dionysius, who 
was himself a literary man and a patron of literature, was in- 
duced to receive Plato into the circle of his court. The result, 
however, whether it was owing to the jealousy of other philoso- 
phers who were then at the court of Syracuse, or to an excess of 
freedom of speech in Plato, and an ebullition of temper and dis- 
appointed literary vanity on the part of Dionysius, was unfortu- 
nate. Dionysius was affronted at some words that passed at an 
interview with him, and was only prevented by the interposition 
of Dion from slaying the philosopher in a moment of exaspera- 
tion. But still he did not remit his displeasure ; for on suffer- 
ing him to depart, he instructed the Lacedaemonian ambassador, 
Pollis, in whose vessel he was to be conveyed from Sicily, either 
to slay him on the voyage or to sell him as a slave ; observing 
sarcastically, " that being a just man, he would be equally happy 
though reduced to slavery." Pollis is said to have so far lent 
himself to this cruel treachery, that he actually caused the philo- 
sopher to be sold as a slave, by landing him at iEgina at a time 
when a decree was in force there, sentencing to death every 
Athenian who should set foot in the island. From this shame- 
ful indignity, however, Plato was immediately relieved by the 
generous kindness of Anniceris, a philosopher of Cyrene, who 
happened to be at iEgina at the time, and paid the twenty minse, 
the price of his redemption. And such, it is added, was the 
noble concern which Anniceris felt for him, that he could not 
be prevailed on to receive back the money from the friends of 
Plato at Athens, but refused it, saying " that they were not the 
only persons interested in the welfare of Plato." 1 

The story is related with circumstantial particularity, and so 
far bears the aspect of truth. Still it has been questioned, as 
inconsistent with the character of Dionysius, who, though des- 
potic in the power which he possessed, and often cruel in his 
use of it, was a man of education and courtesy, and the patron 
1 Laert. in Vit. Plat. 



HIS LIFE. 185 

of literary men. And the treachery of Pollis, as thus exhibited, 
has been regarded as altogether unlikely in the high-minded 
Spartan. Nor again do we find any allusion in the writings of 
the philosopher himself to so affecting an incident in his life. 
The story may be thought still more improbable, if the account 
be true that Dionysius presented him with a considerable sum 
of money, with which he was enabled, during his residence in 
Sicily, to purchase a treasure inestimable to him, the books of 
Philolaus the Pythagorean. These arguments, however, may be 
pressed too far. Individuals possessed of absolute power have 
often been found capable of deeds from which their own feelings, 
apart from that great temptation, would have shrunk : and sud- 
den and most unreasonable and absurd outbreaks of violence, 
inconsistent with their general behaviour, are characteristics of 
such power. And as for the Lacedaemonians, we know that at 
the height of their civilization they were guilty of the acts of 
barbarians. Their extreme cruelty to the poor debased Helots 
is well known ; and in the Peloponnesian war they slaughtered 
indiscriminately all whom they met with at sea, even neutrals, 
and persons inoffensively engaged in the business of commerce. 1 
Further, there are repeated instances of Greeks selling as. slaves 
the free inhabitants of captured cities in their wars with each 
other. There is no reason, at any rate, to question the general 
truth of the story, whatever may be thought of the particulars. 
There can be little doubt that the visit of Plato at Syracuse 
ended unsatisfactorily ; that offence arose between the Tyrant 
and himself; that he was treated with great indignity, and 
returned to Athens in disgust. 2 

From this time we may contemplate him as pursuing, with 

1 Thucyd. iv. 80. Ibid. ii. 67. 5(.koa- tovs fiera AS-TyratW %vpt.Tro\ep.ovvTas, Kal 

odvres rots clvtols dp.vvea'&at. olarrep teal tovs p'fjSe fied' eripwv. 
oi AaKeSacfiovioc vir-qp^av, tovs ipcirSpovs 2 The conduct of Dionysius towards 

ovs eka.gov ' A'&rjvdiuv Kal tCov %yp.p.dxuv Philoxenus, the dithyrambic poet, for 

iv oKkolo-l Trepl HeKoirbvirqpov w\e6i>Tas freely giving his opinion on the bad 

airoKTeivavTes, Kal is (pdpayyas ic^aXov- poetry of Dionysius, was very similar. 

T€s. ivavTo.s yap 5rj /car dpxds tov TroXe- See Diodorus Siculus, xv. 6, who also, 

p.ov oi AaKeSaip.bvioi daovs \a3oi?v iv ttj in xv. 7, confirms the account of this 

S-aXdcrcTTj, ws woXepiovs 5ti(p§eipov, Kal treatment of Plato. 



186 PLATO. 

little interruption, the course of philosophical labour for which 
his whole previous life had prepared him. The term " Academy" 
is now familiar to every one as synonymous with a place of 
learning. How strongly does this mark the celebrity of a school, 
which has thus immortalized in vernacular language the grove 
of the hero Academus or Hecademus, the ground on which Plato 
walked, and, as he walked, imparted to the throng around him 
the riches of his genius, and taste and learning ! Here, in the 
most beautiful suburb of Athens, the Ceramicus, Plato possessed 
a small patrimony, a garden, where he fixed his abode, in the 
immediate vicinity of the grove, his daily resort. Here, amongst 
the tall plane-trees which shaded the walks, were assembled, 
year after year, the master-spirits of the age, whether in pursuit 
of knowledge for its own sake, or for counsel in the direction of 
public or private life, — the philosopher, the statesman, and the 
man of the world, — to converse with the Athenian sage, and im- 
bibe the wisdom which fell from his lips. What an interesting 
assemblage must that have been which comprised in it, amongst 
other influential persons, and young men who afterwards rose to 
importance in their respective states, Demosthenes, Hyperides, 
Aristotle, Speusippus, Xenocrates, Dion! At once you might 
see in the throng the young and the gay by the side of the 
old and the sedate ; the stranger from some distant town of 
Asia Minor, or Thrace, or Magna Grsecia, and the citizen of 
Athens ; the Tyrant of some little state learning theories of govern- 
ment and laws from the philosopher of the Eepublic ; and the 
haughty Lacedaemonian paying deference to the superior wisdom 
of an individual of a country which his own had humbled in 
arms. 1 Nor was the audience exclusively of the male sex. The 
wives and daughters of Athenian citizens, indeed, were not in 
that assembly ; for custom excluded these. But the accom- 
plished courtezan, whom the unnatural exclusion of the chaste 

1 In the Dialogue "on Laws," it is was seen in the Acadernia itself. So- 

the Athenian stranger who instructs the crates is away ; Plato speaks ; Cretans 

Lacedaemonian and Cretan in the theory and Lacedaemonians, among others, are 

of legislation. Here we have pro- the auditors, 
bably a representation of what actually 



HIS LIFE. 187 

matron and daughters of a family from the social circle beyond 
their own homes, had raised to importance in Grecian society, 
was there, seeking the improvement of her mind by joining in 
the discussions and listening to the instructions of the philoso- 
pher, and thus qualifying herself for that part which she had to 
sustain as an intimate with the men of the highest rank and 
most intellectual cultivation in Greece. As Aspasia, so cele- 
brated in History, on account of her intimacy with Pericles at 
the height of his power, and her influence with that great man, 
was herself a disciple of Socrates ; so in Plato's own school of the 
Academia were found, with others, probably, of less name, of the 
same class, the Mantinean Lasthenea, and Axiothea of Phlius. 

Socrates attracted persons around him from all parts of the 
Grecian world, by the charm of his engaging conversation, and 
thus became in himself a great object of interest. 1 Plato made 
Athens itself also, even more than his own person, an object of 
interest to the civilized world of his day ; converting it from 
being only the centre of political intrigue and agitation to the 
cities of Greece, into a common university, and common home 
for all. Compare what was said of Athens about half a century 
before, " that it was the nature of Athenians neither to keep 
quiet themselves, nor to suffer other people to do so," 2 and its 
well-known character at that time of a "tyrant state," with the 
respect which Plato had won for it, when it became, not through 
the versatility of its citizens, and its inexhaustible resources, but 
by a truer title, through the lessons of virtue and wisdom, which 
it freely imparted to all, pre-eminently the School of Greece ; — 
and what an exalted opinion does the change now operated give 
us of the influence of Plato ! 

Isocrates had, at the same time, his school of Ehetoric over- 
flowing with pupils. Aristippus, also trained in the school of 
Socrates, was inculcating his scheme of ethics, which maintained 

1 During the representation of " the philosopher who had attracted so much 

Clouds," he stood up in a conspicuous notice as to be personated on the stage, 

part of the theatre to gratify the curiosity iElian. Var. Hist. ii. 13. 
of the audience, many of them strangers 
visiting Athens at the festival, to see the 2 Thucyd. i. 70. 



188 PLATO. 

the theory of Pleasure as the Chief Good. But esteemed as 
Isocrates was for the gentleness of his life, and his skill as a 
master of Ehetoric ; and acceptable as the doctrines of Aristippus 
must naturally have been to a corrupt society ; neither of these 
great names sufficed to obscure the greater name of Plato, "or 
could rival the pretensions of the Academia to be the great school 
of philosophy, and literature, and civilization. 

A mind so intensely occupied as that of Plato, would 
scarcely find leisure for taking part in the political affairs of 
his country. The profession of Philosophy was not as yet, 
indeed, become entirely distinct ; but the teaching of Socrates 
had greatly tended to render it so. His rigorous method of 
interrogation which called forth the latent difficulties on other 
subjects, could not but produce great distrust in those who laid 
themselves fully open to it, as to their own ability to manage the 
complex matters of public concern, as well as impress them with 
despair of success in that walk of exertion. Socrates himself 
avoided as far as possible all interference in the politics of 
Athens. Plato strictly followed his example. Accordingly, we 
find, in several places of his writings, a contrast drawn between 
the philosopher and the man of public life ; and an indirect 
apology for himself, as one who kept aloof from the public 
assemblies and the courts. 1 He betrays, indeed, strong disgust, 
not unmixed with contemptuous feeling, at the state of misrule 
into which the democracy of Athens had degenerated in his day, 
and he was evidently glad to avail himself of the plea of Phi- 
losophy, to absent himself from scenes so uncongenial to his 
taste. Doubtless, independently of any political bias, he was 
glad to escape from the sycophancy and tumult of the popular 
assemblies at Athens, and to enjoy the calm shades of his beloved 
retreat. This was the sphere of action for which nature and his 
whole previous life had peculiarly fitted him. Here he could 
effectually diffuse the salutary influence of his philosophy, in 
counteracting, in some measure at least, the selfishness of the 

1 Phccdo, p. 145; Thecet. p. 115, ct seq. ; Gorg. p. 82, et scq. ; Bepub. vi. 
p. 79 ; Epist. vii. cd. Lip. 



HIS LIFE. 189 

world. Here he could maintain an undisputed supremacy over 
minds, which (such was the impatience of all authority in those 
times) no mere external power could have controlled, or so 
entirely subjected to the direction of an individual. 

Through the influence, however, of his Pythagorean friends, 
with whom he appears to have held constant intercourse, Plato 
was prevailed upon, at the age of sixty-five years, to quit the 
retirement of his garden for a time, and pay a second visit to 
Sicily. 1 It was the policy, indeed, of the Pythagoreans, li-k^ that 
of the Jesuits in modern times, to keep up an active intercourse 
with society, whilst in their internal system they cultivated phi- 
losophy with the ardour of exclusive devotees. Socrates wished 
to govern the conduct of men by an appeal to their reason ; con- 
vincing them of their errors and follies, and leading them to 
seek the means of informing themselves aright. The Pythago- 
reans, like the Jesuits, aspired to carry out their views by a 
moral hold over men in society ; by taking part, accordingly, in 
the management of states, and by a secret influence over those 
in power. The accession of the younger Dionysius to the throne 
of Syracuse, and the opening presented for producing an effect 
on him through Plato's influence with Dion, the next in power 
to the Tyrant, were opportunities which would not be lost by 
their watchful zeal. Such seems, if we may proceed on the 
authority of the Epistles, to have been the occasion of this invi- 
tation of Plato to Syracuse. We see, at the same time, that there 
was a struggle of factions at Syracuse at this period. The party 
opposed to Dion, in order to counteract his influence, obtained 
the recall of Philistus, a man distinguished alike as a statesman, 
a commander, and an historian, 2 and a strenuous supporter of 



1 Diogenes Laertius says, he went to 2 Cicero speaks of Philistus as a writer 

Sicily on this occasion, in order to found in the following manner : Philistum 

a city according to the principles of his doctum hominem et diligentem. (De 

Kepublic, but that Dionysius failed in Divin. i. 20.) Catonem cum Philisto et 

his promise of land and men for the pur- Thucydide comparares? . . . quos eniro. 

pose. But others, he adds, stated that ne e Graecis quidem quisquam imitari 

the object of his visit was the liberation potest. (De Clar. Orat. c. 85, Op. Tom. 

of the island from tyranny. In Vit. Plat. i. p. 480, ed Olivet, 1758.) 



190 PLATO. 

the existing government, but then in banishment through the 
ingratitude and caprice of the elder Dionysius. The result was, 
that though the reception of Plato at Syracuse was most flatter- 
ing, for he was welcomed with the royal pomp of a decorated 
chariot, and the celebration of a public sacrifice, his mission was, 
after all, utterly fruitless. 

At first everything seemed prosperous. The change wrought in 
the manners of the court is described as marvellous. Philosophy 
becamS the fashion ; and the very palace was filled with the 
dust stirred uj> by the number of geometricians. Even the 
expulsion of Dion, which soon followed, through the successful 
intrigues of his enemies, did not at once estrange Dionysius from 
the philosopher. He would not, indeed, allow Plato to leave 
Sicily with Dion : but, using a gentle constraint over him, detained 
him within the precincts of the citadel ; shewing him at the 
same time all respect, and hoping at last, as it seems, to bring 
him over to his interest. At length the attention of Dionysius 
was called to preparations for war ; and Plato, released from his 
embarrassing situation, was enabled to return to Athens. 

He was not, however, deterred from once more making the 
trial, how far an impression could be made on the mind of 
Dionysius, and the restoration of Dion to his country effected ; 
and, as on the former occasion, so now, he was chiefly induced to 
undertake the enterprise, by the earnest intercession of his 
Pythagorean friends. Dion himself was living at Athens, wait- 
ing the opportunity of returning to his country ; and his relatives 
at Syracuse sent letters to Plato, urging him to use his exertions 
in behalf of Dion. Even Dionysius himself wrote a letter to 
him, entreating him to come, and promising satisfaction at the 
same time in regard to Dion. He also sent a trireme for him, 
with Archidemus, a disciple of Archytas, and others with whom 
the philosopher was acquainted, to render the voyage more 
agreeable to him. 1 For a while Plato persisted in declining the 
invitation, pleading his advanced age, for he was now sixty-eight 
years old ; 2 but at length he gave way to these united solicitations. 

1 Plat. Epist. vii. p. 124. 2 b. c. 361. 



HIS LIFE. 191 

The second Dionysius, indeed, like his father, was fond of drawing 
around him men of eminence for literature and philosophy. At 
this time, amongst others of the same class at his court, were the 
philosophers Diogenes, iEschines, Aristippus, and some Pytha- 
goreans. Plato might have not unreasonably hoped, therefore, 
that a mind delighting in such society, or at least ambitious of 
the reputation of being a patron of literature, might yet be 
influenced to sound philosophy. He was, besides, desirous of 
making an attempt to produce a reconciliation between Dionysius 
and Dion. Thus did he pass the Straits of Sicily a third time, 
to be a third time disappointed in the object of his voyage. 
Though he was welcomed, as before, with great splendour and 
demonstrations of respect, not only were his endeavours for the 
restoration of Dion unsuccessful, but he incensed the tyrant by 
venturing to intercede in behalf of Heraclides, a member of the 
liberal party at Syracuse, who was under suspicion of having 
tampered with the mercenaries. Still Dionysius was desirous of 
retaining the friendship of the philosopher. Plato was removed, 
indeed, from the garden in which he lived, under the pretence of a 
sacrifice about to be performed there by women, and placed in the 
quarter of the mercenaries. Such a situation was most unplea- 
sant to him ; as he could not but feel himself in danger amongst 
that lawless class, who naturally disliked him, as an enemy of 
the power which gave them employment and pay. 1 But this 
indignity was probably more the effect of the hostility of the 
opposite party against Dion, than an act of the weak Tyrant 
himself. Plato, in his perplexity, applied to Archytas and the 
Pythagoreans at Tarentum, to extricate him from these difficult 
circumstances. At their instance, accordingly, Dionysius con- 
sented to the departure of Plato, and dismissed him with kind- 
ness, furnishing him with supplies for his voyage. 

Thus did Plato once more return to Athens, heartily disgusted 
with the untoward result of his visits to Sicily. 2 Though the 
friend of Dion, the head of one great party at Syracuse, he had 

1 Plutarch, in Dion. 
2 Mefxtvyicws rty rrepl 1,iKikLav irXdvrjv kolI dryx'a^. (Plato, Ep. vii. 149, Bip. ed.) 



192 PLATO. 

acted in Sicily consistently with his conduct at Athens, in not 
taking any active part in political affairs. Even Dionysins him- 
self seems, throughout his conduct towards him, to have "been 
jealous rather of his personal regard for Dion, than suspicious of 
any exertion on his part in the cause of Dion against him, and 
to have sought to detain him at Syracuse, not out of fear or ill 
will, but for the honour of the presence of the philosopher at his 
court. This is further evinced by the subsequent conduct of 
Plato. For, in the expedition which Dion planned and executed 
against Dionysius, he took no part ; making answer to the invi- 
tation to join in it, " that if invited to assist in doing any good, 
he would readily concur ; but as for doing evil to any one, they 
must invite others, not him." 1 

The remaining years of his life were gently worn away 
amidst the labours of the Academia. These labours were unin- 
termitted to the very close of a long life ; for he died, according 
to Cicero's account, in the act of writing ; his death happening 
on the day in which he completed his eighty-first year. " Such," 
adds Cicero, " was the placid and gentle old age of a life spent in 
quietness, and purity, and elegance." 2 Another account, how- 
ever, of his death, states that he died during his presence at a 
marriage-feast. 3 And another account besides (evidently the 
invention of some enemy to his fame), attributes his death to a 
loathsome disease. 4 On his first residence in the garden of the 
Academia, his health had been impaired by a lingering fever, in 
consequence of the marshiness of the ground. He w T as urged to 
remove his residence to the Lyceum, the grove afterwards fre- 
quented by the school of Aristotle ; but such was his attachment 
to the place, that he preferred it, he said, even to the proverbial 
salubrity of Mount Athos ; and he continued struggling against 
the disorder for eighteen months, until at length his constitution 
successfully resisted it. 5 Adopting habits of strict temperance, 
he thus preserved his health during the remainder of his life, 



1 JSp. p. 140. 2 Diog. Laert. in Vit. after Herniippus. 3 De Senect. c. 5. 

4 Diog. Laert. in Vit. 5 Mli&ru 



HIS LIFE. 193 

amidst the harassings of foreign travel, and the undermining 
assiduities of days and nights of study. 

Plato was never married. He had two brothers, Glauco and 
Adiniantus, and a sister, Potona, whose son, Speusippus, he ap- 
pears to have regarded with peculiar affection and interest, as the 
destined successor to his school of Philosophy. He inherited a 
very small patrimony, and he died poor, leaving but three ininse 
of silver, two pieces of land, and four slaves, and a few articles of 
gold and silver, to the young Adimantus, the son, or grandson, 
as it would seem, of his brother of that name. 1 

In person he is described as graceful in his youth, and if the 
etymology of his name be correct, as remarkable for the manly 
frame of his body. 2 One circumstance, however, is mentioned, 
which detracts in some measure from his bodily accomplish- 
ments ; the imperfection of his voice, which has been character- 
ized as wanting in strength of tone. 3 

In regard to moral qualities, he was distinguished by the 
gravity, and modesty, and gentleness of his demeanour. He had 
never been observed from his youth to indulge in excessive 
laughter. 4 Several anecdotes are told of his self-command under 
provocation, as, for example, his declining to inflict the due 
punishment on a slave when he found himself under the excite- 
ment of anger. A pleasing instance is given of his amiableness 
and modesty, at a time when his fame was at its height. Some 
strangers, into whose company he had been thrown at Olympia, 
coming afterwards to Athens, were received by him there with 
the greatest courtesy. All the while, however, they were 
ignorant who their host was. They merely knew that his name 
was Plato. On their requesting him to conduct them to the 
Academia, and shew them his namesake, the associate of Socrates, 

1 Diog. Laert. in Vit. ; Aul. Gell. 5 Diog. Laert. in Vit. Seneca Be 
Noc. Att. iii. 18. Ira. The anecdotes themselves can 

2 Eratquidem corpus validum ac forte hardly be regarded as oi'iginal. Similar 
sortitus, et illi nomen latitudo pectoris stories are told of others, as of Archytas. 
fecerat. (Seneca, Epist. 58.) Ex quo illud laudatur Archytse ; qui cum 

3 ^laxvcxp^vos. Diog. Laert. in Vit. villico factus esset iratior, " Quo te 

4 Diog. Laert. in Vit. after Hera- modo, inquit, accepissem, nisi iratus 
elides. essem?" (Cicero, Tusc. Qu. iv. 36.) 



194 PLATO. 

they were astonished to find, by his smile and avowal of himself, 
that they had experienced so much unpretending kindness from 
the great philosopher himself. 1 Again, being asked by some one 
if there would be any saying recorded of him, he answered with 
the like modesty, " One must first obtain a name, and then there 
will be several." 2 

The gravity of his manner was by some interpreted as severity 
and gloom. The comic poet Amphis complained of him, that 
" he knew nothing but to look sad, and solemnly raise the brow." 
Aristippus charged him with arrogance. It is no wonder, indeed, 
that, in contrast with the coarse freedom of ^Diogenes, and the 
excessive affability of Aristippus, he should appear haughty and 
reserved. But that this character did not really belong to him, 
we may judge from the social humour which mingles even with 
the sarcastic touches of his Dialogues, and from the anxiety 
which he shewed to correct such a disposition as a fault in Dion. 
His favourite pupil Speusippus was distinguished by the oppo- 
site quality of a lively temper ; and to his especial direction we 
find Plato sending Dion, that he might learn, by the conversation 
and example of Speusippus, a more conciliatory and agreeable 
mode of address. 

The instance given of his vanity in putting himself forward 
at the death of Socrates, as competent to retrieve the great loss 
in his own person alone, bears evident marks of a calumny. It 
may be so far true, as it represents a desire upon his part to con- 
sole his brother disciples under their common affliction. But as 
an evidence of an assumption of superiority over them at such 
a moment, it accords little with that feeling of dismay for them- 
selves, under which he, in common with the rest, fled to Megara 
as an asylum ; or with his indisputable affection for the person 
of Socrates, and veneration for his wisdom and talents. 

Again, the strictness of Plato's philosophical profession, 
amidst the general dissoluteness of manners at Athens, was 
construed by some who had an envious eye on his reputation, 
as only an affected austerity. It was complained of him, that 

1 Mim, Var. Hist. iv. 9. 2 Diog. Laevt. in Vit. p, 23, Bip. 



HIS LIFE. 195 

Ms life did not answer to the high requisitions of his moral 
teaching. 1 Two of his brother disciples in the school of Socrates, 
Antisthenes and Aristippus, imputed to him the grossest licen- 
tiousness. The former taking offence at Plato for objecting to a 
treatise, which he proposed to read, On the Impossibility of 
Contradiction, vented his spleen in a most abusive dialogue, 
which he entitled " Satho," intending at once by that term a sati- 
rical play on the name, and a stigma on the character of the 
philosopher. These calumnies are in some measure supported 
by the tenor of certain epigrams attributed to Plato, and by 
passages of his Dialogues, which display a license of impure 
allusion, shocking to the feelings of the reader, in these days at 
least. His calumniators then found occasion for their scandal, 
in observing amongst those by whom he was surrounded, the 
young and the handsome. But though we may see much to 
reprobate in such passages, and painful as the impression is 
which they leave on the mind, as evidences of the deep corrup- 
tion of human nature, we are not warranted in regarding them 
as conclusive of corresponding immorality of conduct in a writer 
of his age and country. They would shew, indeed, that the 
writer has not escaped the contagion of the vicious atmosphere 
which he breathed ; and they are, of course, a great draw- 
back in our estimate of his sentiments and character. But we 
ought to set off against them the high tone of religious and 
moral feeling which is the general characteristic of his philo- 
sophy ; the beacon which it holds up to warn men of the de- 
basing allurements of pleasure, and of the misery consequent on 
the indulgence of passion ; and its glowing exhortations to seek 
for true' happiness, not in externals, or by aiming at a mere 
human standard of virtue, but by internal purification, and by 
imitations of the perfections of the Deity. 

Much has been said on the absence of any reference to 



1 Seneca De Vit. Beat. c. 18. "Ali- turn Epicure-, objectum Zenoui. Omnes 

ter, inquit, loqueris ; aliter vivis." Hoc, enim isti dicebant, non quemadmodum 

malignissiraa capita, et optimo cuique ipsi viverent, sed quemadmodum viven- 

inimicissima, Platoni objectum est, objec- dum esset. 



196 PLATO. 

Xenophon in the Dialogues of Plato. Xenophon, in his Memo- 
rabilia, has spoken of Plato, and. alluded to the affection with 
which Plato was regarded by Socrates. 1 But Plato has not 
availed himself of any opportunity of paying the like compli- 
ment to Xenophon. This silence cannot, perhaps, be entirely 
accounted for, without supposing that there was a feeling of 
literary jealousy on the part of Plato. But there are some con- 
siderations which may partly account for Xenophon's not appear- 
ing as an interlocutor in the Dialogues. Xenophon, though a 
man of philosophical mind, evidently attended the teaching of 
Socrates, not to learn the art of disputation, or for the indulgence 
of a speculative curiosity. When he philosophized, it was as a 
man of the world, acquainting himself with human nature, with 
the manners and opinions of men, in order to his own conduct 
in life. He was not one of those eager and flippant sciolists, 
whom Plato takes delight in submitting as apt experiments to 
the interrogatories of Socrates. JSTor was he, again, a devotee of 
science, like the young and wise Theaetetus, the interesting person 
who gives occasion to the dialogue of that name, and whom in 
some points he resembled. He would not therefore naturally be 
selected by Plato, in order to the carrying on of discussions in- 
tended for the development of his philosophy. It is remarkable, 
that Plato has only in two places even alluded to himself ; in the 
Phwdo, to explain his absence from the death-scene in the 
prison ; 2 and in the Apologia, as amongst those present at the 
trial of Socrates, and capable of giving evidence as to the nature 
of those instructions which Socrates addressed to the young. 3 

Such was the character of this eminent man. His distin- 
guished career exposed him to the shafts of envy and detraction ; 
and the high aspirings of his mind were clogged and weighed 
down by that corrupt heathenism with which he was surrounded. 
Still his reputation for wisdom and virtue stands above all these 
attacks and circumstances of disparagement. The more we con- 
verse with him in his writings, the more we are charmed by the 
deep feeling of natural piety which pervades his philosophy as 

1 Xenoph. Mem. iii. 6. 2 Phcedo, § 6. 3 Apol p. 78, Bip. ed. 



HIS LIFE. 197 

its master-thought, and by the sound practical wisdom which 
shines forth from them as the real character of the man, reclaim- 
ing and subduing the wild aberrations of his speculative fancy. 

His remains were buried in the place which he had ennobled 
whilst living. Nor were they unattended by the customary 
tributes of honour and affection. Aristotle, who had been his 
constant disciple during the last twenty years preceding his 
death, displayed his veneration for his preceptor by consecrating 
an altar to him. A festival, called after him Platonea, was 
instituted in honour of him, and celebrated annually by his 
disciples. A statue, dedicated to the Muses, was afterwards 
erected in the Academia by Mithridates the Persian. He had 
not, indeed, been dead but a very few years, when the great 
celebrity of his name called forth from his nephew and successor, 
Speusippus, an express work in his praise. Seneca further 
tells us of a singular mark of honour which was paid to him on 
the very day of his decease. There were some Magi, he relates, 
at Athens at the time, who, struck by the singular circumstance 
of his having exactly completed the perfect number of nine times 
nine years, performed a sacrifice to him, esteeming him On that 
account to have been more than man. 1 The story is evidently 
the invention of his later admirers. It is referred to here, as a 
testimony of the enthusiastic admiration with which his name 
has been ever attended. To the same feeling must be ascribed 
the fiction of the discovery of his body in the time of Constantine 
the Great, with a golden tablet on the breast, recording his 
prediction of the birth of Christ, and his own belief in the 
Saviour to come. 2 

1 Senec. Ep. lviii. 28. 2 Brucker, Hist. Crit. Phil. torn. i. p. 654. 



198 PLATO. 



PLATO'S WEITINGS AND PHILOSOPHY. 

The writings of Plato obtained an early popularity. Already, 
during his lifetime, copies of them appear to have been circu- 
lated. An iambic line, \6yoi6iv 'Eg/xoflwgog ifinogsvsrat, proverbially 
applied, long after the time of Plato, to those who made a traffic 
of the writings of others, 1 shews that there was an immediate 
demand for them in Greece. The Hermodorus here referred to, 
was one of his hearers, who is said to have sold the writings of 
the philosopher in Sicily for his own profit. The fact of their 
early circulation is further evidenced, if it be true, as has ■ been 
stated, that complaints were made by some of the persons whose 
names appear in the Dialogues, and even by Socrates himself, of 
the manner in which they had been represented in them by 
Plato. 2 It is very probable, also, that during the long time in 
which he was publicly teaching at Athens, and, doubtless, recur- 
ring frequently to the same topics of discussion, considerable 
portions of what he delivered orally, were treasured up in the 
memory of some who heard them, and afterwards written down, 
and thus published to the world without having received the 
finishing touches of the author's hand. The practice, indeed, of 
thus carrying off the oral lessons of the philosopher is alluded to 
by Plato himself in passages of his writings, as in the Phcedo, 
and Thecetetus, and Parmenides ; where the dialogue is related 
by some one remembering what has passed in conversation on 
a former occasion. This circumstance may, at once, account for 
the comparative inferiority of some of the Dialogues in point of 
execution, and for the fact that some have been passed under his 
name which are not really his ; whilst we have, at the same 
time, a very considerable collection of writings authenticated by 
testimonies descending from his own times. 

1 Die mihi, placetnc tibi, primum, ros solitus est divulgare ; ex quo X6701- 
pdere injussu meo ? Hoc ne Hermodo- <nv 'Ep/x68copos. Cicer. Ep. ad. Alt. 
rus quidern faciebat, is qui Tlatoms lib- xiii. 2]. 2 Ather.rcus, xi. 113. 



HIS WRITINGS AND PHILOSOPHY. 199 

It is by no means necessary for our purpose here (which is 
to obtain a just general view of the character of the philosopher 
and his writings), to enter into the criticisms by which doubts 
have been thrown on particular Dialogues, and on different dia- 
logues by different critics, out of the number commonly included 
amongst the genuine works of Plato. We may only remark, that 
these doubts do not rest on external testimony, but are drawn from 
considerations of the internal character of particular writings, 
which have been judged inferior to the rest in matter and execu- 
tion. Nor is it necessary that we should discuss the various theo- 
ries proposed for connecting the several Dialogues, and tracing in 
them the gradual formation and development of the philosophical 
system of the author. This inquiry certainly has its interest ; 
and could we arrive at any clear results in the prosecution of it, 
it would be valuable, for the light which it would throw on the 
interpretation of the philosophy of Plato. But though we can 
discover a connection between several of the Dialogues, like that 
of a series of discussions on the same subject, it is not possible 
to decide on the order in which the points discussed presented 
themselves to the philosopher's mind, or which we are to regard 
as the more mature expression of his doctrines. This inquiry 
further demands a decision of the agitated question concerning 
the double teaching practised in the ancient schools, known by 
the technical division into esoteric and exoteric, or mystic and 
popular ; the former addressed to the mature disciple, the latter 
to the novice or general hearer. There are undoubtedly marks 
of a recognition of this distinction throughout the writings of 
Plato; 1 and it is also probably referred to by Aristotle, when he 
speaks of the " unwritten doctrines " of Plato. 2 But we cannot 
practically employ it in determining the relative value of parti- 
cular discussions or statements in his writings, without involving 
ourselves in a maze of theoretic disquisition, and ending at last, 
perhaps, in absolute scepticism respecting his doctrines. 

But there is a particular class of writings attributed to him, 
which would possess a peculiar interest for us, if we could 

1 Conviv. p. 245. 2 Aristot Pliys. iv. 2. rots Xeyo/xivots <&ypd(pois d6yfj.a<rip. 



200 PLATO. 

establish their genuineness ; respecting which, however, the 
severe verdict of modern criticism compels us to hesitate in pro- 
nouncing on their genuineness. We mean what are commonly 
published in the editions of his works as the Epistles of Plato. 
By some the question has been regarded as settled beyond 
controversy, against their reception. 1 The style of their com- 
position has been judged to be quite below the character of 
Plato's mind. The apologetic tone of the chief part of them has 
also been considered as evidence of their having proceeded from 
friends or disciples of Plato, vindicating his character from mis- 
representations in regard to his intercourse with the court of 
Syracuse. But though we may allow weight to these considera- 
tions, they are not sufficient peremptorily to decide the question 
against the Epistles ; particularly as we have in their favour the 
authority, not only of Plutarch, who founds much of the narra- 
tive in his life of Dion upon them, but of Cicero, referring to 
them and quoting them expressly as writings of Plato. 2 

Perhaps no philosophical writer has ever received so early 
and ample a recompense of his labours, not only in the reception 
and circulation of his writings, but in the still more glorious 
tribute of the spread of his philosophy, as Plato has received. 
We have mentioned the ordinary marks of admiration which 
accompanied him during his life and after his death. A more 
enduring monument was reserved for him in the foundation of 
the school of Alexandria, not many years after his voice had 
ceased to be heard in the groves of the Academia. There, as in 
a fitting temple, on the confines of the Eastern and Western 
Worlds, was enshrined the Philosophy that had moulded into 
one the philosophical systems of the East and the West. And 
though, in the course of things, the infusion of Eastern Philo- 
sophy predominated at Alexandria, it was still under the vene- 
rated name of Plato that the new system was taught. The dis- 
ciples of the Alexandrian school were proud to call themselves 

1 Mitforcl, Hist, of Greece, vol. vi. ; his fere verbis : " Quo cum venissem, 
Eitter, Hist, of Anc. Phil. vita ilia beata quae f'erebatur," etc. Tnsc. 

2 Est prseclara Epistola Platonis ad Qu. v. 35; also Be Offic. i. 7; and De 
Pionis propinquos ; in qua scriptum est Fin. ii. 14. 



HIS AVRITINGS AND PHILOSOPHY. 201 

Platonists, and to regard themselves as interpreters of the teach- 
ing of Plato, whilst they altered and disfigured that teaching. 
Here, then, was erected the proper monument to his fame. 
Meanwhile, in the Academia, teachers in regular succession 
transmitted their inheritance of his name, and by the charm of 
that, prolonged a feeble existence. For the spirit which had 
formed and animated the school had fled with him ; and the 
Middle and New Academics only attested, by their lingering 
decay, the strength of the foundation on which they had been 
built. How great the influence of Plato was on the philosophy 
of the Komans, needs not to be told to those who are even slightly 
acquainted with the philosophical writings of Cicero, And even 
when Christianity threw into the shade all systems of man's 
wisdom, the only philosophy which maintained its credit at the 
first, was that of Plato. Christian teachers were found, not un- 
willing to own that there was great accordance between his 
doctrines and the revealed truth. Whilst, on the one hand, there 
were disciples of the philosopher who claimed for him all that 
was excellent in the Christian scheme, there were Christians 
who asserted, that he had learned his superior wisdom from the 
elder Scriptures. All this shews the hold which his name still 
retained over the minds of men at this period. The great Father of 
the Western Church, St. Augustine, avows himself a warm admirer 
of Plato. He concedes the approximation of the Platonists to 
the Christian doctrines ; affirming that all other philosophers 
must yield to those who had speculated so justly as they had 
respecting the Chief Good. 1 Afterwards, indeed, we find Aristotle 
supplanting Plato in favour with the Christian controversialist. 
The struggle had been for some time between their respective 
advocates, which of them should obtain the lead in the Christian 
schools. But Plato, on the whole, had the mastery, though the 
result of the struggle was an eclectic system, in which the prin- 
cipal differences of the two philosophers were studiously recon- 

1 Augustin. Be Civit. Bei, viii. Chap- ing the agreement of Plato with the 
ter after chapter is taken up in Euse- Scriptures, 
bius' Prceparatio Evangelica, in shew- 



202 PLATO. 

ciled. In fact, we may consider Platonism as in the ascendancy 
in the Christian Schools, until the period of Scholasticism, that 
is, until the twelfth and the following centuries, when the disci- 
pline of argumentation was at its height in the Church, and with 
it the study of Aristotle's Philosophy. Even then the theories 
of Plato maintained their ground. The speculations pursued by 
members of the Church continued to be for the most part 
Platonic in their principles, though they were conducted and 
modified by the dialectical method of Aristotle. 

What, then, was the character of this philosophy, it will 
naturally be asked, which both rendered it so attractive to 
those amongst whom it arose, and also secured for it such an 
immortality ? 

It is a very remarkable circumstance that, as far as we know, 
Plato should have escaped all censure at Athens on account of 
his philosophy, when other philosophers, who, like him, became 
centres of popular attraction, were the objects of extreme per- 
secution. It is the more remarkable, as not only his master 
experienced such persecution, but his immediate disciple, Aris- 
totle, was forced to fly from Athens to escape the storm with 
which he was threatened. Coming between these two, and 
enjoying, at the height of his popularity, an influence perhaps 
surpassing that of either, he yet was suffered to wear out his life 
unmolested, amidst the tranquil labours of his school. 

The only evidence to the contrary of this is an unauthenti- 
cated anecdote, told by Laertius, of Plato's having accompanied 
Chabrias to the citadel of Athens, and shewn his zeal in support 
of that general, under the capital charge brought against bim. 
Upon this occasion, it is said, Crobylus the sycophant, meeting 
him, observed, " Are you coming to plead for another, as ignorant 
that the hemlock of Socrates awaits you too ?" to which he re- 
plied, "When I served my country in the field I underwent dangers, 
and now in the cause of duty I undergo them for a friend." 1 

But though we may refuse to believe this story, it is quite 
evident, that the condition of Philosophy at Athens was not 

1 Diog. Laert. in Vita Plat. 18. 



HIS WRITINGS AND PHILOSOPHY.. 203 

without its obloquy and danger even in its most nourishing times 
under Plato. We may gather from many passages of the writings 
of Plato, that the cause of Philosophy still needed defence, and 
that great caution was required on the part of those who publicly 
professed the study of it. A re-action indeed had taken place in 
favour of philosophers, in consequence of the severity with 
which Socrates had been treated ; and the assailants of Socrates 
suffered retribution from the popular feeling. Still there was in 
the mass of the Athenian people a strong antipathy to Philosophy, 
from their ignorance of its real nature. They had been taught 
to regard philosophers as idle and mischievous drivellers, ever 
prosing about nature and the phenomena of the heavens, and as 
contemners of the gods. 1 They had seen also how some of those 
to whom Athens owed her greatest calamities, had been amongst 
the students of philosophy. Alcibiades, for example, had been a 
hearer of Socrates ; one of singular natural .endowments, in the 
formation of whose mind Socrates had taken especial pains, and 
who might therefore be regarded as the test of what Philosophy 
could effect. The people had loved him as their spoiled child, 
in spite of all his follies ; but they had felt also the mischief and 
misery of his wild career of ambition ; and they threw the blame 
on his instructors, and the system in which he had been trained. 
Again, a great prejudice had been excited in the public mind 
against Philosophy in general, from the many low and mercenary 
professors of it with which Greece abounded ; minute Philo- 
sophers, patronized by the public for their temporary services in 
teaching the arts of public life, but who produced ignominy and 
disgust to the true profession by their unworthy monopoly of its 
name. Acid to this, that popular opinion had been corrupted by 
the false teaching, which had been so long and extensively at 
work throughout Greece. Erroneous principles of judgment and 
conduct had taken root in the public mind ; or, to describe the 
case more correctly, all principles were unsettled ; and the state 

1 Ovkovv y <xv olfjiai, ^ 5'#s 6 ZuKpdrrjs, vtjkovtuv tous \6yovs Troioufxcu. Phcedo, 
el-rrdv TLva vvv aKoiaavra, ovh' el KUficpdo- Op. vol. i. p. 159, ed. Bip. ; Polil. vol. vi. 
7roi6s €L7}, ws adoXtaxW' KaL 0l ' we pi ^P ' P* 92, et alib. 



204 PLATO. 

of the public mind was one of inward anarchy, and insubordina- 
tion. A Philosopher, therefore, especially in questions of Eeligion 
and Morality relating to the conduct of life, seriously devoted to 
his profession, and pursuing it with a single eye to the advance- 
ment of truth, was necessarily regarded with suspicion and 
dislike. For it is a natural propensity of the mind to adhere to 
established opinion, simply because no effort of thought is 
required, no trouble of self-examination imposed, no censure of 
self exacted, in leaving things as they are ; and there appears 
difficulty and hazard in a change; and what is inveterate in 
their own minds, often passes with men for the oldness of truth 
and nature. A reformer, therefore, is always at first an object 
of aversion; and no reform is successfully accomplished, until 
it has worked its way by subduing the prejudices which it has 
to encounter at the outset, and turning the majority committed 
against it into a minority, by its gradual advances, like a wave 
encroaching on the shore on wiiich it has long seemed to beat 
ineffectually. Not only was the opposition to sound philosophy 
produced in the minds of the vulgar by this distemper of public 
opinion; but even the better part of society, the more educated 
and reflecting members of the community, were infected by it. 
The majority of these would be deterred from taking up a pro- 
fession exposing them to so much dislike and risk. Some of 
them, too, with a view of standing well with the mass of those 
amongst whom they lived, and promoting their own interest, 
would avail themselves of the popular clamour against Philo- 
sophy, cry down the pursuit of it as innovation and danger, and 
make it their business to exaggerate, instead of counteracting, 
vulgar prejudices on the subject. 

These obstructions to the teaching of philosophy are pointedly 
referred to by Plato, as existing in his time, and demanding his 
attention, in order to the success of that mission of reform which 
he had undertaken. He treats the vulgar prejudice against 
philosophy as not altogether unreasonable, 1 in consequence of 

1 *Cl /xaKapic, y)v 5'iyd), fir) irdvv oi/tw ^ovaip, eav avrols fir] <pi\oveiKu>v, aWa 
T&v iroW^v KaTrjydpet dXX' oiav tol do^av irapafiifeovfievos, kclI airo\vbfievo<s rrjv rrjs 



HIS WRITINGS AND PHILOSOPHY. 205 

the perverse opinions which had been popularly inculcated ; and 
endeavours to disarm the public hostility, by alleging the causes 
of the disrepute into which philosophy had unjustly fallen. 
Alluding, as it seems, particularly to the instance of Alcibiades, 
he points out, that it is not philosophy which corrupts the 
young, but the passions of the young and high-spirited which 
pervert the means of good to the greatest mischief. None but 
those of the highest order of talent and natural gifts are fully 
susceptible of its influence ; but then these are the very cases, 
he observes, which are also capable of the most mischief, through 
their greater susceptibility of the seductions of the world. There 
cannot but be objections against Philosophy, he further observes, 
as long as the mass of mankind is, as it is found, incapable of 
appreciating real essential good for its own sake ; and as long as 
those of superior nature, who should be its devoted friends, and 
examples of its influence, are drawn away from it in pursuit of 
popular opinion. He endeavours accordingly, to evince that 
there is no just ground for alarm, at least in those days, at the 
power of Philosophy. It was now deserted and helpless, fallen 
amongst those who were not its own people. If disgrace now 
attached to philosophy, it must be imputed to the unworthy 
connexion into which it had been forced by circumstances. The 
mean mechanic, " the smith, bald, and little," (such is his illustra- 
tion of the unhappy condition to which Philosophy had been 
reduced in those times), who has obtained some money, and has 
just been released from his bonds, and washed in a bath, having 
got a new dress has decked himself out as a bridegroom, about to 
marry the daughter of his master, on account of her poverty and 
destitution. 1 It was no wonder, therefore, that such spurious 
fruits, of so unsuitable an alliance, were then seen in the world, 
and that the few who clung to the true profession were like stran- 

<pi\o/Jt.c&eias 5ia§6\rji>, evdeiKvvr) oOs X^yets <pa\a.Kpov /cat apuKpov, vewarl fih £k 5ecr- 
tovs (pCKoabcpovs, k. t. X. {Rep. vi., Op. p.u>v \e\vp.£vov, kv ^aKaveicp d£ \ekovp.£vov, 
vol. vii. p. 101, ed. Bip.) veovpybv i/xdriop exovros, cos vvpuplov ira~ 

peaKeva.crp.frov, dia iveviav nal ept]p.lav 
1 Ao/cets ovv tl, 9p> d'iyd), Siafitpeiv av- rod beairbrov tt]V S-tryarfya pL^Wouros 
robs IdeTv apytipiov Krr\(japhov %aX/^ws, yap-ew ; (Rep. vi., Op. vol. vi. p. 93.) 



206 PLATO. 

gers in the world, living away from public affairs, as unwilling to 
join in the general iniquity, and unable to resist it effectually by 
their single strength. 1 

If Plato thought it necessary thus to apologize for the 
pursuit of philosophy, it is clear that there was yet reason to 
apprehend an outbreak of violence against its professors. In fact, 
however, he appears not only to have escaped all such outrage, 
but, whilst he propagated, by his oral teaching and his writings, 
a system of doctrines directly contrary to the impure morality 
and superstition established around him, to have enjoyed an 
esteem beyond that which any other teacher on the same ground 
ever obtained. 

The explanation of this is in a great measure to be sought in 
the circumstances under which his philosophy was formed and 
matured, and to which it was peculiarly adapted. 

What Themistocles admitted truly of himself when he 
answered, that he should not have achieved his glorious deeds 
if Athens had not been his country, was as truly applied by 
Plato to himself, when he enumerated amongst his causes of 
gratitude to the Gods, that he was born an Athenian. For his 
philosophy was eminently Athenian. Viewed at least as we 
have it in his writings, it was the expression, by a master-mind, 
itself imbued with the spirit of the age, but rising above that 
spirit by its intrinsic superiority and nobleness, of those ten- 
dencies of thought and action, which had been working in 
Greece, and especially at Athens, the centre of Grecian civiliza- 
tion. 

The Peloponnesian war terminated with leaving Athens 
humbled before the confederacy, which the hatred and jealousy 
of her power had leagued against her. But the loss of her 
ascendancy in Greece was not the worst evil brought on Athens 
by the effects of that war. The machinery of faction, by which 
the war had been principally carried on, produced the most 
mischievous effects on the character and happiness of the Greeks 
at large ; aggravating the symptoms of evil already existing in 

1 Rep. vi. p. 95. 



HIS WRITINGS AND PHILOSOPHY. 207 

the constitutions of the several states, and, not least, in that of 
Athens. Not only did the insolence of the Athenian democracy 
gain strength in the result, and rise beyond all bounds, but the 
excesses in which party spirit had indulged, drew into pro- 
minence the selfishness and ferociousness of a demoralized 
people. Then might be clearly seen the levity and licentious- 
ness of men, who, living amidst constant hazards, had learnt to 
regard nothing beyond the enjoyment of the passing hour; the 
cunning and cruelty engendered by mutual distrust; and the 
wanton contempt of all law and religion, prompted by the sight 
of the calamities which the tempests of social life scatter indis- 
criminately on the good and the evil. The first impulse to this 
decline appears to have been given by the outbreak of the 
plague which desolated the city in the second year of that war. 
For so the great historian describes that dreadful visitation as 
the first beginning of the increase of lawlessness to the city. 
And he sums up the account of the evil which had already 
manifested itself, in saying that, " as for fear of Gods, or law of 
men, there was none that restrained them." * On this stock of 
corruption, speculative irreligion, and speculative immorality, 
had grown up as its natural offshoots. Men were found harden- 
ing themselves against the reproaches of conscience and the fear 
of retribution, by arguing against the fundamental truths of 
religion and morals. Tn Eeligion, it was contended that there 
were no Gods ; or that if the existence of a Divine power were 
conceded, there was no Providence over human affairs ; or, lastly, 
that if there were a Providence, the wrath of the offended Deity 
was placable by the prayers and sacrifices of the offender. In 
Morals, the question was debated, whether all was not mere 
matter of institution and convention, and the device of the weak 
against the stronger power ; and whether right might not change 
with the opinions of. men. 

This state of things had fostered a peculiar race of philo- 
sophers, familiarly known by the name of the Sophists ; a term, 
not at first implying that disrespect with which it subsequently 

1 Thuc. ii. 53. 



208 PLATO. 

marked the ambitious pretensions of the class to which it was 
attributed, and with which it is now regarded amongst us. Thus, 
we find Herodotus speaking both of Solon and Pythagoras as 
Sophists, and even Pindar does not disclaim the title for the poet. 
Those who obtained celebrity on account of their intellectual 
ability as instructors and benefactors of the world of their day, 
appear to have been, at first, distinguished only by the general 
appellation of eopoi, the wise, as in the case of " the Seven n so 
called ; men, who were not mere students, but actively employed, 
if not in legislation, as Solon was, in some other public service. 
As, however, in the progress of civilization, leisure was afforded 
to many for devotion to intellectual pursuits for their own sake, 
and a taste for such pursuits was more widely spread, and they 
who had taken the lead in cultivating that taste would be looked 
up to, as authorities and guides for the instruction of others ; there 
would arise, in the course of time, some who would no longer be 
known, like those of a former age, simply as " the wise," but as 
professors of that wisdom which was now admired and sought 
after in the world around them. Henceforward, the term 
"Sophist," would be the appropriate designation of those who 
professed wisdom as the pursuit of their lives, denoting not only 
a student of wisdom but a teacher of it. 
I Such were those men, so eminent in their day, Protagoras of 
Abdera, Prodicus of Ceos, 1 Hippias of Elis, 2 Gorgias of Leontium, 
chiefly known as the Ehetorician, and others, men of great ability 
and various extensive acquirements, and whom we may justly re- 
gard, notwithstanding the ridicule and contempt which are thrown 
on them by the sarcastic irony of Socrates, in the Dialogues of 
Plato, as useful in their generation ; so far as they excited or sus- 
tained attention among' their contemporaries to the need of men- 

1 Author of the well-known " Choice the Olympic festival, on some occasion, 
of Hercules," given by Xenophon, Mem. in a splendid vestment, and which, as 
ii. c. 1. well as his shoes and the ring on his 

2 Hippias of Elis appears to have sur- finger, with the device engraved on it, 
passed all in vanity and ostentation. he asserted, were all the workmanship 
He boasted a skill in every kind of com- of his own hands. He has the merit 
position in prose and verse, and in vari- of having invented a system of mnemo- 
ous arts ; making a display of himself at nics. Plato Hippias, Op. vol. iii. p. 208. 



HIS WRITINGS AND PHILOSOPHY. 209 

tal and moral improvement, and thus, unconsciously, preparing the 
way for the wiser teaching of their great antagonist, Socrates him- 
self; leaving him indeed many a false opinion, and immoral specu- 
lation, to root up as a noxious weed out of the soil, but opening at 
the same time, the ground for receiving the good seed which he 
should scatter on it, as he followed on their steps. Viewed as 
they are by us, in a picture painted by a master-hand, in which 
the figure of Socrates occupies the foreground, they are cast into 
deep shadow in contrast with the full light in which he stands 
out to the eye ; and we can hardly avoid forming a disparaging 
opinion of them, as a class. We must then look off for a time 
from Plato's picture before us, if we would do justice to these 
celebrated men, and assign to them, in spite of all their faults, 
their due importance in the History of Philosophy. There were 
doubtless some who were indeed a scandal to their profession, 
pursuing it as a matter of personal profit to themselves, mere 
arrogant pretenders to that wisdom which they professed to 
impart; who corrupted instead of improving the young men by 
the principles which they inculcated. Such appear to have been 
Thrasymachus, introduced in the Republic of Plato, as arguing 
that the interest of the ruling power is the law of right, and that 
injustice was more expedient than justice ; and Callicles in the 
Gorgias, advocating the free indulgence of the passions as virtue 
and happiness. Yet there were others of the class, who, though 
they made the profession of a Sophist a source of gain, and who 
obtained great wealth by means of it, 1 and incur on that account 
the strong reprobation of Socrates ; who, nevertheless, by their 
earnest and sincere application of their minds to the studies in 
which they were engaged, evinced a real love of that wisdom 
which was their ostensible pursuit, and would be entitled, there- 
fore, to the far higher praise beyond that of Sophists, of being 

1 Protagoras is described, in the Hip- works ; Hippias also, as boasting that 

pias Major, as having made more money he had obtained by his teaching, in a 

by teaching in different places of Greece, short space of time, more than 150 

during the forty years of his employ- minse in Sicily, and 20 minse from one 

ment in it, than Phidias and ten other small place, Inycus, in that island, 
sculptors together had made by their 



210 PLATO. 

" lovers of wisdom," philosophers in truth as well as in name. 
In time indeed, the name of Sophist would become odious and 
disreputable, and fall into disuse, as we find it in the time of 
Plato and Aristotle, and that of philosopher would prevail and 
be affected by all engaged in the pursuit. 

The Sophists, so called, evidently were not the primary cor- 
rupters of the public mind in Greece, but themselves the offspring 
of that moral chaos, which resulted from the internal disorders 
of the country, and which they sustained by the character and 
tendency of their teaching; like children paying the due but 
unhappy recompense of their education to the parent that had 
trained them in evil. They were an evidence of the corruption 
having reached the higher classes of society ; for their instruc- 
tions were sought by those who could pay liberally for them, 
and who desired to qualify themselves for office and power in the 
state. Going about from place to place, wherever they could 
obtain a reception at the houses of the wealthy, everywhere, 
indeed, except at Lacedsemon, where the discipline of Lycurgus 
excluded all foreign element from the education of the young, 
they undertook to render all that flocked to them, adepts in the 
art of government, in oratory, and even in virtue. This last pre- 
tension would have been extravagant and absurd, but for the 
prevailing looseness of opinion on moral subjects. But when 
the notion of right was understood, or could be represented at 
least, without shocking public feeling, as nothing more than what 
was instituted and in fashion, there was an opening to every 
unprincipled teacher, to adopt his moral lessons to the varied 
requirements of each distinct society. 

At no place were these universal teachers more cordially 
received than at Athens. The anxiety with which an expected visit 
from any one of greater note among them was expected at Athens, 
and the zeal with which the young hastened to see and hear the 
wise man on his arrival, are depicted in lively colours by Plato. 

In the dialogue entitled Protagoras, Socrates gives an account 
of the reception of the famous Sophist of that name, with other 
eminent individuals of the class, at the house of Callias, the 



HIS WRITINGS AND PHILOSOPHY. 211 

Athenian. Hippocrates, a young man of a noble and wealthy 
family of Athens, having heard of the arrival of Protagoras, is so 
impatient to see him, that, by the dawn of day, he is on his way, 
in company with Socrates, to the house where the great man 
was lodged. Socrates and himself arrive at the house, where 
there is already a considerable gathering of Sophists, and also of 
young men of rank and importance. Alcibiades and Critias, 
and two sons of Pericles, are among those attending on the 
occasion. The crowd is so great that they have great difficulty in 
obtaining admission. The porter, an eunuch, as Socrates ironically 
describes him, disgusted with the intrusion of so many visitors, 
on opening the door and seeing them, at once repels them with 
the exclamation, " Ha ! some Sophists ! he is not at leisure '? 
and, at the same time, vehemently with both his hands, shuts 
the door against them. They continue, however, knocking ; and 
the porter answers them again from within, without opening the 
door, "Sirs! have you. not heard that he is not at leisure?" 
"My good man," says Socrates, "we are not come to Callias, 
nor are we Sophists ; but take courage ; it is Protagoras we 
want to see ; announce us therefore." At length then, though 
reluctantly still, he opens the door. On entering, they find 
Protagoras walking up and down in the vestibule, with several 
persons following in his train, who were studiously attend- 
ing on his steps, taking care to give him precedence as he 
turned, by filing off and opening a way for him through them- 
selves. Socrates immediately addresses him, expressing the 
purpose for which they were come, and the interest with which 
the young Hippocrates had sought that interview. Callias has 
given up his whole house to his distinguished visitors, for even 
his store-room is occupied. In that apartment was observed 
Prodicus, not yet risen from his couch, covered up with skins 
and carpets, with a group of persons around him ; and in 
another opposite vestibule was seen Hippias, with his circle of 
listeners, discoursing to them about questions of meteorology and 
astronomy. The attention of all, however, is soon concentrated 
on Protagoras, who proceeds, at the request of Socrates, to give 



212 PLATO. 

thein a display of his art, in a discourse illustrative of the nature 
and importance of that moral instruction and general education 
which it was the profession of the Sophists to impart. All were 
charmed with his eloquence, even Socrates himself; only he can- 
not let the opportunity pass without an exercise of his elenchtic 
skill, and by his method of interrogation clearing up those points 
which Protagoras, in his discursive style, had left indistinct and 
uncertain. They part, however, with mutual expressions of 
goodwill, notwithstanding their differences of opinion in the 
discussion. And so the scene of this interesting dialogue closes. 

At Athens, evidently, if anywhere, the Sophist felt himself 
at his proper home. There, at the houses of .the noble and rich 
citizens, was his readiest market. 

Herodotus may justly have been surprised at the success of 
so vulgar a deception at Athens, the seat of literature, as that 
practised by Pisistratus, when he exhibited to the people a 
woman of great stature, arrayed in full armour, and pompously 
borne in a chariot into the city, as the goddess Athena, rein- 
stating him in her own citadel. 1 It would have been still 
stranger if these impersonations of Athenian wisdom had not 
succeeded in imposing on the understanding of Athenians. For 
their minds were in that fluctuating state which disposed them 
to ) receive every various form of impression from any plausible 
teacher. Their general cultivation of mind, and taste for litera- 
ture, prepared them for listening with pleasure to exhibitions of 
rhetorical and dialectical skill, such as the Sophists gave. And 
from admiration of the skill thus displayed, the transition was 
natural to regard that as the only wisdom, which was capable of 
maintaining both sides of a question with equal plausibility, and 
that as the only virtue, which could shift and accommodate 
itself to every expedient with equal satisfaction. 

Yet the Athenian was not entirely the creature of those cir- 
cumstances, which had so considerably modified his character. 
He still retained some traces of that high feeling so beautifully 
touched by his own tragic poet, when that poet speaks of " the 
1 Herodot. Clio, 60. 



HIS WRITINGS AND PHILOSOPHY. 213 

pious Athens," and appeals to the ancient associations of Eeligion 
which consecrated the land. Eeligion indeed had acquired the 
name of superstition, or the fear of supernatural powers, 
beiGibauiLovia : but even this marks that there were some who 
cherished, though in that degenerate form, a veneration for the 
truths of the existence of the Deity, and of the Divine agency in 
the world. Nor was the Athenian ever insensible to his pride of 
birth and rank among those of the Grecian name. 1 He dwelt 
on the recollections of a remote antiquity of origin, as distin- 
guishing him among the members of the Greek family. He 
claimed to be the offspring of the Attic soil, abro^cav, whilst 
others were descended from successive immigrations of strangers. 
Amidst his fickleness, and susceptibility of every passing im- 
pulse, he yet felt himself strongly influenced by his veneration 
for the past, and loved to connect himself with the ancient glories 
of his country. In the Athenian character, accordingly, may be 
observed the union of extremes ; devoutness of deep inward feel- 
ing, accompanied with superficial irreligion and profane dis- 
soluteness of morals ; a mercurial temperament, ever eager for 
change, floating like a light cloud over a deep-rooted reverence of 
antiquity, and the traditions of ancestral wisdom and virtue. 

Now, on accurately studying the writings of Plato, we find 
them, both, a reflexion of this state of the public mind at Athens, 
and a corrective of it. Full of imagination and of severe subtile 
thought, they are formed to attract and fix the attention of the 
literary Athenian. Bringing the Sophist on the scene, and 
giving sketches of the social life of Athens, and making conver- 
sation the vehicle of his instructions, Plato in a manner trans- 
ferred to his own teaching, what was every day witnessed at 
Athens in the professorial exhibitions of the Sophists them- 
selves. His philosophy, a counterpart, in its way, to the drama 
of the comic poet, instructed the people, at once, through their 
wisdom and their folly. As Aristophanes spoke to them under 

1 The remark of Thucydides, vi. 59 ; Tyrant of Lampsacus, — 'A^-qvcuos &p 

in reference to Hippias, the son of Aa^xj/aKrivQ, — shews in a few words the 

Pisistratus, giving his daughter, Arche- Athenian estimation of themselves, 
dice, in marriage to the son of the 



214 PLATO. 

the mask of folly, and gave utterance to lessons of severe wisdom 
under that mask ; so Plato, on the other hand, put on the mask 
of the sage, and in grave irony ridiculed and exposed the light- 
hearted folly of his countrymen. Both were wiser than they 
seemed to the outward observation ; as was indeed the volatile 
Athenian, to whom they addressed their counsel. Both pre- 
supposed that delicacy of perception and quick tact in their 
fellow-citizens, which would be flattered by such indirect modes 
of address, and would, at the same time, appreciate the jest of 
the one, and the irony of the other. Both speak with the free- 
dom of the democratic spirit. But the counsel of Aristophanes 
is that of the privileged jester of the sovereign-people amidst 
festal scenes and the enthusiasm of mirth ; whilst Plato appeals 
to the Athenian at the moment of quiet, serious reflection on the 
surrounding folly, and treats him as a contemplative spectator, 
rather than himself an actor in it. 

Before the time of Plato, there were no philosophical writings 
which answered the requisitions of the Athenian mind. There 
were poems of the early philosophers. There were didactic 
writings of the later Pythagoreans, and even dialogues discussing 
speculative questions. Anaxagoras, too, whose name was well 
known at Athens, had published a treatise of philosophy. 1 But 
none of these, if they were even accessible to the Athenian, were 
calculated to attract his attention. The philosophical poems 
differed nothing from prose but in the metre, and were exceed- 
ingly dry and uninviting to the general reader. The books of 
Pythagoreans were very few, at least at this time, and hardly 
known to any but the devoted student of philosophy. 2 Nor 
would the dialogues of Zeno or Euclid, concerned about mere 
logical subtilties, or the physical discussions of Anaxagoras. 
possess any charm for the lively Athenian. Even afterwards, 
the instructive writings of Aristotle did not obtain that reception 

1 Laertius says that Anaxagoras was Pythagoreans that Dionysius of Hali- 
tbe first to publish such a treatise. In carnassus speaks, when he recommends 

17/. Ariax. viii. the reading of them, not only for their 

matter, but for their style. De Vett. 

2 It must be of the more modern /Sci\ Ccns. iv. 



HIS WETTINGS AND PHILOSOPHY. 215 

which could save them from a temporary oblivion. But the 
dialogues of Plato supplied exactly what was yet wanting in 
this department of Athenian literature. They were the proper 
development of the philosophical element in the genius of the 
people. The shrewd practical talent of the Athenians had been 
strikingly exhibited in the successful achievements of their great 
generals and statesmen, and in the lead of Athens itself amongst 
the states of Greece at the close of the Persian war. Their taste 
in arts, and poetry, and general literature, had put forth splendid 
fruits in the works of Athenian artists, Athenian masters of the 
Drama, and of History. But their genius for abstract specula- 
tion as yet had nothing which it could claim as strictly its own. 
Socrates indeed laid the basis for such a work. During the half 
century preceding the appearance of Plato as the leader of a 
school of philosophy, Socrates had been engaged as a missionary 
of Philosophy, awakening the curiosity of men ; turning their 
thoughts to reflection on themselves, as creatures endued with 
moral and intellectual faculties ; and inspiring them with 
longings after some information on questions relating to their 
own nature, and a taste for discussions addressed to the resolu- 
tion of such questions. Plato succeeded him, and carried the 
philosophical spirit, now fully called into action, to its result. 
His works accordingly display this spirit at its maturity ; 
exemplifying at the same time that peculiar combination of 
qualities which formed the Athenian character. Thus are they 
at once serious and lively, abstract and imaginative ; full of deep 
thought and feeling intermingled with gaiety and humour ; 
instinctive with the awe of religion and ancient wisdom, whilst 
they present also an image of Athenian versatility, and frivolity, 
and love of change. They convey indeed a strong rebuke of the 
vices of the times. They draw, in no softened colouring, out- 
lines of the evil and misery resulting from the profligacy of 
existing governments, and the excesses of individual cupidity ; 
the two great causes assigned by Plato for the prevailing evil of 
his times. But these lessons were calculated rather to interest 
the hearer or reader by their faithful representation of manners, 



216 PLATO. 

than to alienate him, as we might at first think, by the justness 
of the censure. Athenians would give their attention to such 
descriptions, as they did to the invectives of their orators, 1 
acknowledging the general truth of the representation ; and 
each, at the same time, taking no offence of what he applied to 
others, and to every one rather than to himself. Philosophy too, 
taught, as by Plato, colloquially, was such as peculiarly to suit 
the taste of the Athenian, whose life was in the Agora, or the 
Ecclesia, or the Courts of Law, or the Theatre ; and who re- 
garded the interchange of words as no unimportant ingredient in 
everything that he had to do. 2 Such conversation, too, as that 
of Plato's Dialogues, elegant conversation, steeped in the well- 
spring of Grecian poetry and literature, and expressed in language 
such as Jove, it was said, might use, and adorned with the charms 
of an exquisite musical rhythm, could not but be highly attrac- 
tive to Athenian ears. We may see, accordingly, in these cir- 
cumstances, at once, an occasion for the existence of such writings 
as those of Plato, and a reason of the peculiar mould in which 
they were cast, as well as of the success which attended them. 

Not only, however, was the general character of his philo- 
sophy, as viewed in connection with the writings which convey 
it, derived from such influences ; but the internal structure of it 
was the natural result of the peculiar education of such a mind 
as his, under the circumstances to which we have referred. His 
philosophy was essentially dialectical or colloquial ; an examina- 
tion and discussion of systems, and doctrines, and opinions. 
According to his notion, the true philosopher is the dialectician ; 
the investigator, who has fought his way, step by step, through 
every argument capable of being adduced in support of, or 
against, a particular opinion, refuting those that are unsound, 
until at length he has found rest in some position that cannot 
1 le shaken. 3 Hence he is the disciple of no particular system of 

1 Thucyd. iii. 08 ; Deraostb. passim. 3 Rcpub. vii. 14. "ilawep h p.dxv &a 

2 06 tovs \6yovs rots epyois (iXdSt)v ttolvtuv eXtyx^v Ste£u6j>, fiy Kara hi>t,av, 

>ti>oi, d\A& fAr) irpodidax'&Vi'cu, paX- d\\d /car' ovaiav Trpcfovfiovfiwos e\4yx*u\ 
\oi> \:>yc[) irp!)T€pov, y) cttl ft del fyytp eX'&eu', cv waat tovtois &tttu)ti t<£ \6yw dia- 
\ (Thucyd. ii. 40; also iii. 42.) jropeifyreu. Op. voL vii., p. 167. 



HIS WRITINGS AND PHILOSOPHY. 217 

philosophy, whilst he brings all systems under his survey, and 
compels all to pay a tribute to his stock of truth, by discussing 
them, and rejecting in them what will not abide the test of 
examination. We have seen that he was engaged in studying 
the doctrines of Heraclitus, and of the Pythagoreans, and of the 
other schools, whilst he was also a hearer of Socrates. He had 
thus begun in early life to analyse different systems by the 
searching method of Socrates ; and his mature philosophy was 
only the same proceeding more deeply imbibed in his own mind, 
more extensively carried on, and more vigorously applied. So 
far, indeed, does the colloquial spirit predominate over his philo- 
sophy, so entirely dialectical is it in its whole internal character, 
that it leaves on the mind of the reader more an impression of a 
series of discussions, in order to the determination of the ques- 
tions considered, than the conviction of anything positively 
determined. Hence it is that Cicero, speaking of Plato's 
writings, says, that " in them nothing is affirmed ; and much is 
discoursed on both sides ; everything is inquired into ; nothing 
certain is said." 1 So also Sextus Empiricus raises the question, 
in what respect the philosophy of Plato differs from that of the 
Sceptics. 2 And again his doctrines have been characterized as 
brilliant clouds, which we seem at the point of grasping, when 
they vanish from our hands. This effect is doubtless partly to 
be ascribed to the disguise of his irony ; to the artist-design 
which presides over his whole instruction. But it is also the 
proper effect of that dialectical philosophy which is worked out in 
the Dialogues. Whilst he is a consummate artist throughout, he 
is also illustrating the lessons which he had learnt from Socrates, 
by bringing false opinions to the test of discussion, and leaving 
truth, for the most part, to be collected from refutation of error, 
rather than positively enunciating it, or exactly defining it. 

For when we come to examine his philosophy more closely, 
we find, that it begins and ends, like the lessons of Socrates, 
with a confession of the ignorance of man. Socrates had led 

1 Cic. Acad. Quccsl. i. 12. 
2 Sex. Emp. Pyr. Hyp. i. 33 ; Diog. Lacrt. in Vit. Plat. 33. 



218 PLATO. 

him to perceive how much was taken for granted in the popular 
opinions and systems of philosophy ; how even those who had a 
reputation for wisdom and talents took up principles which they 
had never examined, and which they could not satisfactorily 
account for, or defend, when pressed in argument. Imbibing, 
accordingly, the spirit of the Socratic method, he did not endea- 
vour to teach, in the proper sense of the term, so much as to 
explore and test the minds of men ; to ascertain how far they 
really understood the doctrines and opinions which they pro- 
fessed. The fundamental error of the Sophists was, that they 
assumed all current opinions to be true. They did not think it 
necessary to examine this preliminary ; whether the opinions on 
which they built their fabric of knowledge were true or false. 
It was enough for them that certain opinions were actually held ; 
and to these, as given principles, they directed their whole 
system of teaching. Their teaching, accordingly, was entirely 
vgbg d6%av 9 relative to opinion ; and it must, consequently, stand, 
or fall, as existing opinions could be maintained or impugned. 
Now, with Plato, as with Socrates, the investigation of this pre- 
liminary point (that is, whether existing opinions are true or no), 
is everything. The presumption that they are true, is what he 
will by no means admit. He demands a positive evidence of 
them. And as the presumption of their truth is a bar to all 
inquiry concerning them, he commences with the opposite pre- 
sumption of their falsehood, or at least a confession on the part 
of the inquirer, that as yet, — until he has investigated, — he 
does not know the truth of his opinions. 

For the same reason, he avoids all dogmatism in his con- 
clusions. Those might aspire to communicate the knowledge of 
new truth to the mind, who, as the Sophists did, assumed that 
knowledge was entirely subjective ; or who held that any 
opinion which could be produced in the mind, was simply true, 
was really known, because it was there. But as Plato denied 
the truth of Opinion, if it had no other evidence, but that of its 
mere presence in the mind ; so, neither would he concede that 
any process of the mind in itself, or any argumentative and per- 



HIS WRITINGS AND PHILOSOPHY. 219 

suasive instructions, could produce, by their own force, a convic- 
tion of truth in the mind. In other words, he required the 
student of philosophy, not only to begin, but to end, with, a con- 
fession of the ignorance of man. 

We have an apt illustration of this in the dialogue entitled 
the First A Icibiades. There Socrates is introduced, questioning 
Alcibiades concerning his plans of life, and shewing how entirely 
he had presumed on his knowledge of matters with which he 
was unacquainted ; and that until he could be brought to feel 
and confess his ignorance, there was no possibility of his being 
able to direct himself or others aright. 

In the Meno, the same is illustrated by the comparison of the 
effect of the searching questions of Socrates, on the mind of the 
person submitted to them, to that of the torpedo. Meno says he 
had thousands of times, and to many a person, and with much 
credit to himself, as he thought, spoken on the subject of virtue; 
but on conversing with Socrates, he was quite at a loss now to 
say even what virtue was. 

To the same purport is the general application by Socrates 
in the Apologia, of the oracle which pronounced him the wisest 
of men. The oracle, he observes, had only used his name by way 
of example, as if it had said, " He, men ! is the wisest of you, 
whoever, like Socrates, is convinced, that he is in truth worthless 
in respect of wisdom." 1 

The method of Plato, accordingly, is the reverse of didactic. 
The Sophists could employ a didactic method ; because they 
assumed principles as true, from which they might proceed to 
argue and persuade. But this was precluded to Plato, assuming, 
as he did, that all opinions demanded a previous examination. 
It was necessary for him to extort a confession of ignorance, to 
make men sensible of the difficulties belonging to a subject. It 
only remained, therefore, for him to proceed by Interrogation. 
In a colloquial philosophy,. Interrogation is what experiment is 

1 "Clarrep av e'iiroi otl OStos v/aCjv, <S rrj dA^dp, irpbs ao^lav. (Apolog. Soc. 
cLi&puTToi, aocpwrarbs iarip, octtis, tiairep p. 53. 
HwKpaTrjs, ZyvwKev, on ovcevbs #£ios ecrri 



220 PLATO. 

in physical inquiry. It is the mode of discovering what the real 
state of a person's mind is, in regard to the opinions which he 
professes. The whole art of Socrates consisted in putting questions 
to the person with whom he conversed, so that an answer bearing 
on the point in debate might be elicited ; that the grounds on 
which a given opinion was held might fully appear ; and the 
person's own answers might open his mind to see it in its proper 
light. This method Plato has followed out in the interrogatory 
of his Dialogues. Under such a method of philosophy, the 
answerer is brought to teach himself. The lesson thus given by 
the philosopher, consists wholly in the questions which he puts. 
He preserves, from first to last, the simple character of the in- 
quirer ; and he pronounces only so far as he approves or rejects the 
answer given. 

The popular opponents of this method called it a method of 
producing doubt ; and regarded it as dangerous to the principles 
of the young. Plato carefully obviates such a misrepresentation 
of his proceeding, and guards his method from being confounded 
with that of the Sophists. The Sophists taught the art of exciting 
doubts on every subject ; a mere effort of gladiatorial skill. 
They professed to make men apt to cavil and dispute on any 
given subject. 1 All principles, according to them, were equally 
stable ; all were equally open to be impugned. They, therefore, 
did not care how they unsettled the minds of men, if their skill 
could only find materials on which to exercise itself. In Plato's 
hands, however, the awakening of doubt has for its object, to 
remove the unstable ground on which opinions may happen to 
be rested, and to lead to more settled convictions. With him it 
is exalted into a regular discipline of the mind. With the 
Sophists, it was perverted to strengthen that universal scepticism 
in which their whole teaching was based. So strictly does Plato 
confine the application of his method to the single purpose of 
investigating the truth, that he strongly objects to the use of it 
as a mere exercise for ingenuity ; lest the young, led on by the 
pleasure of refuting and perplexing others, should think, at last, 
that there were no real distinctions of right and wrong. 

1 fiep. vii. p. 177. 



HIS WRITINGS AND PHILOSOPHY. 221 

Plato seems the more anxious to distinguish his method of 
inquiry from that of the Sophists, as his method did in some 
measure resemble theirs. It was inquisitive on every subject, as 
theirs was. It did superficially appeal' to be nothing but ques- 
tioning, and doubting, and cavilling. It did appeal to the reason 
of every man, and oblige him to see how he could defend his 
opinions. And on this very ground Socrates had been attacked : 
for he was accused of corrupting the young, by making them 
" doubt," a-rogsTv voiovvtu,. 1 Plato fully admits that this practice, as 
pursued by the Sophists, was dangerous to the principles of the 
young. In fact, he observes it would be even better to suffer 
them to remain under the guidance of some principles, which, 
though not true, served as restraints on their passions, than to 
remove everything from their minds, and leave no check what- 
ever to licentious indulgence. By a beautiful illustration, he 
compares the effect produced by the sophistical method, to the 
case of a child brought up amidst wealth and luxury, and high 
connection, and the society of flatterers, but in ignorance as to 
his real parentage. Suppose, he observes, such a person to come 
to know that those, whom he has hitherto believed to be his 
parents, are not so, and at the same time not to know who his 
real parents are. It is clear, that whilst in his state of ignorance 
concerning his supposed parents, he would respect and attend to 
them more than to his flatterers ; but on finding out his mistake, 
unless he were of a superior character, such as is rarely metVith, 
he would attend to his flatterers more than to those whom he 
once supposed to be his parents. So would it be then, he shews, 
with one who should find out that the popular principles of 
morals in which he had been trained, were not the truth, without 
arriving, at the same time, at the real truth. He would no 
longer be controlled by those moral principles of which he had 
discovered the falsehood ; but having nothing to substitute in 
their place, he would give way afterwards, without reserve, to 
the seductions of pleasures, the flatterers, whose blandishments 
he had before in some measure resisted. 2 In opposition to such 

1 Gorgias, Op. 4, p. 1 62 ; Meno, p. 348 ; et alib. 2 Rep. vii. pp. 174-1 78. 



222 PLATO. 

a system of cavilling, Plato holds an even course between the 
scepticism which merely doubts about everything, and the dog- 
matism which pronounces on everything without examination. 

The method by which he accomplishes his object, carried out 
to the fulness of a regular system and discipline of the mind, is, 
what he calls by a term conveying to a Greek ear its colloquial 
origin and application, dialectic. As contrasted with the 
spurious method of the Sophists, or the method of contradicting 
on every subject, and involving the mind in endless perplexity, 
it was the true art of Discussion. As contrasted with the mere 
wisdom of opinion, do%o<t6<pia, which the Sophists inculcated, it 
was philosophy, real science, or knowledge of the truth. The 
method of his philosophy, and his philosophy itself, thus run up 
into one, and coincide under the common name of Dialectic. 1 

To trace the manner in which this coincidence was effected, 
will lead us to a perception of the true character of Plato's 
philosophy, as a system mediating between the dogmatism of 
the sciolist on the one hand, and the scepticism of the disputant 
on the other. 

The hypothesis, we observe, on which he founded the whole 
of his proceeding, was the fallaciousness of Opinion ; the Sophists, 
on the contrary, assuming the truth of Opinion universally. 
Whilst to the Sophists every opinion served as a ground of 
argument, and for them there was no need to look beyond the 
apparent ; it was necessary for Plato to seek for some Criterion 
of Truth out of the region of mere Opinion. Commencing with 
denying the sufficiency of what metaphysicians call Subjective 
truth, or the assumption, that whatever is perceived by the mind 
is true, because it is so perceived ; he had to search after Ob- 
jective truth, truth independent of the mind of man, and exempt 
from the contingencies and variations of human judgment, as a 
foundation of his system of knowledge. 

1 ' AXXa p,rjP to ye diaXeKTiKov ovk aXXcp Meno, 75, hri de taws t6 8iaXeKTLKu> 

duaeis, us ty&fiai, ir\-qv r$ /caS-apws re repov, pA\ povov rdX^rj awoKpii>e<r'&aL, 

Kal diKaim cpiXoacxpovvTi. Sophist, p. dXXa /cal 5t' eiceLvwv S)V ai> irpoaofxoXoyr) 

275, 253. '0 ph yap o-vvotttikos 5ia- dbivcu 6 ip<jorwp.evos. 
XeKTiKos, 6 5e p,Tj oii {Mep. vii. p. 173.) 



HIS WRITINGS AND PHILOSOPHY. 223 

The hypothesis, accordingly, of the fallaciousness of Opinion 
from which his Method set out, involved a corresponding 
hypothesis in philosophy of the fallaciousness of the senses. It 
is the joint application of these two fundamental principles that 
combines his Method and his Philosophy in one master-science 
of dialectic. Opinion, according to him, is the kind of know- 
ledge derived from the information of the senses, and is therefore 
no proper knowledge at all, but mere belief or persuasion, nkng ; 
whereas true knowledge is founded on that which is purely ap- 
prehended by the intellect, without any intervention whatever of 
the senses. Dialectic, as it is Philosophy, is conversant about 
that which IS, or which has being, as contrasted with presen- 
tations to the senses, which have only the semblance of Being ; 
as it is a Method, it investigates the reason, or account of the 
Being of everything ; — the account of everything as it is, and not 
as it appeaes ; not being satisfied, like its sophistical counter- 
part, with opinions of which no account can be given, but bring- 
ing all to the test of exact argument and definition. 

In order, therefore, to give his Method a firm basis, and his 
Philosophy a distinct object, it was required that he should 
establish a sound theory of Being, or, in other words, a sure 
Criterion of Truth. Such, then, was his celebrated Theory of 
Ideas. . 

There are four distinct views embraced in this theory as it is 
developed by Plato ; four phases, as it were, under which it is 
presented. 

I. The first, and most strictly Platonic view of it, according 
to what we have already stated, is in connection with logical 
science. None of the great philosophers before Plato ; none, 
that is, of those who had speculated on the Universe at large, as 
Thales, Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Anaxagoras, were 
conversant with logical science. Zeno the Eleatic, and Euclid 
of Megara, were known indeed as dialecticians. But the kind of 
logical science which they professed, was a rude and imperfect 
art, consisting chiefly in the knowledge and use of particular 
fallacies, and not founded in any deep study of the nature of 



224 PLATO. 

thought and reasoning. They were, besides, mere dialecticians, 
rather than philosophers in the most extended sense of the term. 
Plato's mind, however, while it was engaged in logical studies, 
was also no less intent on the investigation of the first principles 
of all things. And, as has been often observed in other cases, 
the favourite study of his mind gave its complexion to his theory 
of first principles, or doctrine of Ideas. 

The term " Idea " does not indeed convey to the understand- 
ing of a modern any notion of a connection of the theory with 
logical science. In our acceptation, it belongs exclusively to 
Metaphysics. But in Plato's view there was no separation 
of the two branches of Logic and Metaphysics. Both were 
closely united in the one science to which he gave the name of 
Dialectic, and which was accordingly at once a science of the 
internal reason, — that is, of the processes of the mind in its silent 
speculation on things ; and of the external reason, that is, 
of the processes of the mind in communicating its speculations 
to others in words. The terms, therefore, belonging to the 
one process, are indiscriminately applied to the other. Thus, 
to "give a reason" of the being of a thing, didovai ?Jyov r^g 
ov<r/ag, was equivalent to a scientific view of it ; and the word 
X6yog denoted at once the terms of language by which that 
reason was expressed, and the reason itself as it existed in the 
mind. Thus, too, the word, tdsai, or ideas, was only a little 
varied from the logical term e"dn, or species, which indeed is 
sometimes substituted for it in the phraseology of Plato. The 
simplicity, accordingly, and invariableness, and universality, 
which belong to terms denoting the agreement of a variety of 
objects in certain characteristics, were transferred to supposed 
counterparts in the mind itself, or to the notions represented by 
the terms which are the name of the species. Hence the idea, or 
eidos, was conceived to be, not simply a result of a process of the 
mind, but something in the mind, and as having a being inde- 
pendent of the mind itself. As the species expressed in words 
was universal, so its counterpart in the mind was the universal 
nature in which the individuals to which it referred, participated. 



HIS WRITINGS AND PHILOSOPHY. 225 

In that, the mind, perplexed by the variety and anomaly of indi- 
vidual objects, found an invariable sameness. In the contem- 
plation of it, the mind no longer wavered and doubted, but 
obtained a fixedness of view. The idea, or species, therefore, was 
to be explored and reached in order to a just theory of everything, 
and was in itself that theory. 

Further, as there is a relative classification of objects by 
means of words ; some standing for characteristics common to a 
greater number of objects, whilst others stand for characteristics 
of only some out of that number ; this property of words was in 
like manner conceived to have its counterpart in the mind. A 
graduated series of species Was supposed to exist, first in the 
mind, and then independent of the mind, by means of which, as 
by steps, the mind might rise to the highest species, the ultimate 
Idea itself, in which all others were comprehended. And hence 
there was no real perfect science but that which penetrated to 
this ultimate nature or being ; and all other ideas, or theories, 
were truly scientific only as they participated in this. 

This notion of "participation" of the Ideas, was a still further 
application of logical language to the business of philosophy in 
general. For, as the several particulars belonging to a species all 
possess those characteristics which constitute their species, as 
well as those which connect them with a higher species or genus 
of which they are the species, their logical description is 
made up of an enumeration of those characteristics, together 
with the name of the higher class or genus under which the 
whole species is included. The higher class is an ingredient in 
the specification of a lower ; or, conversely, a lower class par- 
ticipates in a higher. 1 So Plato considered everything in the 
Universe, as being what it is, by a "participation" of the Ideas; 
and consequently, that to explore its nature we must ascertain 
the idea which thus constitutes it. The Pythagoreans before him 
spoke of things as existing by " assimilation " to the essential 
being. Plato's logical views occasioned this change of phrase- 
ology ; for he varied only the term, as Aristotle observes, whilst 

1 See Aristotle, Ejjic. Phil., supra. 

Q 



226 PLATO. 

he followed the Pythagoreans as masters, in the fundamental 
conception of his theory. 1 Aristotle, indeed, whilst he assigns 
the logical studies of Plato as the occasion of the form of the 
ideal theory, more particularly accounts for the theory, from 
Plato's observation of the importance of Definitions in the ethical 
discussions of Socrates. Plato found how effectual an instru- 
ment Definition had been in the hands of Socrates in silencing 
the impertinencies of false opinion on moral subjects. As it had 
brought moral questions to an issue, so it might be applied, he 
thought, generally, as a stay to the extravagances of opinion on 
all subjects whatever. Accordingly, he had only to generalize 
the principle of definitions ; and the result was the theory of 
Ideas, or the universal science of reasons, and the ultimate 
criterion of all truth. 

To understand, however, rightly how Plato was led by logical 
considerations to his theory of Ideas, we should observe more 
particularly what his view was of the nature of Logic. We 
should greatly misapprehend him, if we supposed that he had 
that notion of the science which has prevailed since the syste- 
matic exposition of it by Aristotle. As it was conceived by 
Plato, it answered strictly to its original name of Dialectic, 
rather than to that of Logic ; being the art of discussion, or the 
art of drawing forth the truth from the mind by questioning, 
rather than the art of deducing consequences from given princi- 
ples. It was a higher, more comprehensive science, than the art 
of Deduction. For it was conversant about the discovery and 
establishment of principles ; whereas the logical science which is 
employed about Deduction, assumes the principles in order to 
speculate about their consequences. It left the latter inquiry to 
be pursued by subsequent research ; whilst the more ambitious 
flight of those who first speculated on the nature of Discourse, 
was directed to the discovery of Truth. In Plato's hands it was 
an energetic reform of the quibbling shallow logic, which was as 
yet known and practised in the schools. This Logic had no 
concern for truth, but only for victory and display. It consisted 

1 Avistot. Metaph. i. 6. 



HIS WRITINGS AND PHILOSOPHY. 227 

in a skill of wielding certain sophisms, known by familiar names 
in the schools, and founded for the most part, on the equivoca- 
tions of words. An appearance of truth being all that it aimed 
at, it did not exact of the student any consideration of the 
nature of things. It was enough that he could give the word- 
reason, the mere logos, the symbol or counter. He was not 
taught to go beyond this legerdemain of language, or to search 
out the reason of the being of things, and correct the paralogisms 
involved in the use of words, by reference to the realities repre- 
sented by them. This sophistical method affected indeed to be 
a didactic art ; to instruct and furnish the mind with principles 
applicable to every subject of discussion. It considered, for- 
sooth, language as an universal science of Nature already 
constructed; and, proceeding on this supposition, professed to 
enable the student to apply the wisdom already embodied in 
language, to the purpose of appearing wise himself, and impart- 
ing to others the same apparent wisdom. But going no further 
than this, it ended in mere So'ga, mere opinion. It produced, that 
is, in the result, only a wavering state of mind, subject to be 
changed by every new impression of opposite arguments, and, 
after all, imparted no steady knowledge. 

It was a great reform, then, which Plato undertook, in follow- 
ing up the example proposed in the conversations of Socrates, 
and instituting a proper science of Dialectic, a science of the 
reason of the Being of things. It was a change from an empirical 
system, a vain art of words, to a scientific method or investigation 
of the reasons themselves, on which an instructive use of words 
must be founded. 

For, we must observe, it was still a science of words which 
he teaches as the true Logic or Dialectic. It had throughout 
a reference to discussion. Still it was a real science, as com- 
pared with the verbal and technical logic of his predecessors. 
Though it was a science of words, it had for its object the deter- 
mination of such words as should fully correspond to their inten- 
tion as symbols, in characterizing and denoting the proper Being 
of the thing signified. These reasons of the Being of things, the 
Xoyoi rrig ovaiag, were the Ideas. 



228 PLATO. 

His logical method, accordingly, was an analytical, inductive 
method. Setting out on the assumption of the erroneousness of 
opinion as such, it examines hypothesis after hypothesis on each 
subject proposed for discussion, rejecting and excluding, as it 
proceeds, everything irrelevant. The scrutiny instituted consists 
in searching for the grounds of contradiction with regard to each 
opinion, and shewing that opposite views on point after point in 
the matter discussed, are at least as tenable as the assumptions 
contained in the given opinion or hypothesis. Hence it consists 
almost entirely of refutation, or what both he and Aristotle 
denominate elcnchus, a process of reasoning by which the contra- 
dictory of a given conclusion is inferred. 

A method of this kind was calculated fully to put to the test 
every unsound opinion. It collected everything that could be 
said, either for, or against, a given opinion. It made the main- 
tainer of it state on what grounds he maintained it, what conse- 
quences followed from it ; and either forced him to self-contradic- 
tion in his defence of it, or obliged him to modify it according 
to the requisitions of the argument. And the result was, that 
whatever stood its ground after this complete sifting of the 
question, might be regarded as stable truth. When refutation 
had done its utmost, and all the points of difficulty and objec- 
tion had been fully brought out, the dialectical process had 
accomplished its purpose ; and the affirmative which remained 
after this discussion, might be regarded as setting forth the truth 
of the question under consideration. For everything connected 
with it, and yet not founded in the truth of things, was then 
removed. And the result therefore might be accepted as a simple 
truth of Being, an object which the eye of the intellect might 
steadily contemplate, and therefore matter of Science. 

The process throughout corresponds with that of Inves- 
tigation in Modern philosophy. Only we must conceive the 
dialectical Investigation of Plato as nothing more than an 
admirable scheme for clearing a question of everything foreign 
to it ; whilst the latter draws out the true law of Nature from 
the promiscuous assemblage of phenomena, under which, it is 



HIS WRITINGS AND PHILOSOPHY. 229 

presented to observation, and lies concealed, until analysis has 
clone its work on the mass. The nomenclature of the two 
methods varies accordingly. Argument is the instrument of the 
former ; experiment that of the latter. Eefutation is the primary 
business of the former ; rejection and exclusion of irrelevant 
phenomena that of the latter. Definitions of words, as they are 
signs of the Being of things, are the result of the former ; whilst 
the latter develops Laws of Nature. 

Both processes are carried on by Interrogation. But whereas 
the analysis which investigates a law of Nature proceeds by 
interrogation of Nature, the analysis of Plato's Dialectic proceeds 
by interrogation of the Mind, in order to discover the true 
Being or " Idea " of the thing discussed. Therefore it was that 
Socrates called his art, in his own playful manner, paieia, a kind 
of intellectual midwifery ;* a delivering of the mind of the 
notions, with which it was pregnant, and which it was labouring 
to bring forth. Thus, the Dialectic of Plato, being entirely 
directed to observation on the mind, and not to external nature, 
or anything sensible, takes the state of knowledge, as it exists 
in the mind of the person interrogated, for the ground of its 
proceeding. It deals, that is, with tilings, as they exist in the 
forms of thought ; going, as Plato says, from species to species, 
and ending in species ; and so arriving at the principle ; follow- 
ing throughout the steps, by which the mind advances, in ob- 
taining an exact view of any object of its contemplation. It 
is, in fact, the true thought spoken out. The process of thinking 
by which it is attained, is the dialectical process of interrogation. 
The decision of the mind when its conviction is settled is the 
dialectical conclusion. 

The chief logical instrument employed in this method is 
Division. The being able to divide according to genera, and not 
to consider the same species as different, nor a different one as 
the same, is stated to belong especially to dialectical science. 2 

1 Thecet. p. 194. TV de pbaieiav rdv- ca^-as, /cat /j,rjTe ravrbv eldbs erepov ijyr,- 
tt)v eyc6 re /cat T]y,r\rr\p e/c S-eoO ek&xouev' cracrS-at /x-qre erepov dv ravrbv, fi&v ou 
i) /me? rdv yvvaiK&V eyu de, rQv vioiv re rrjs 5ta\e/crt/c??s (prjcrofiev eTna-rrjfirjs elvac, 
/cat yevvaiiov, /cat oaoi /caXot. Nat (prjcrofiev. Also Thecet. p. 151. 

2 .a™^ p 274. To /card yevrj Statpe- Polit. p. 66. Hep. vii. p. 167 : et alio. 



230 PLATO. 

Iu searching out the true definition of the being of a thing, this 
portion of the internal process of the mind would naturally strike 
the attention. General ideas being founded on general resem- 
blances of objects, the first step towards a more distinct idea of 
an object is to see that the generalization is complete : that it 
neither excludes nor includes any objects which it ought not to 
exclude or include. The true idea would be that which charac- 
terized every object belonging to the idea, and none other. 
The analysis accordingly pursued by Plato is conversant about 
Division, using the induction of particulars in subordination to 
this. We find, indeed, a constant use of Induction by Plato, 
after the manner of Socrates. But it is always in reference to 
the main purpose of determining, not a general fact, but the 
dominant Idea in every object of thought. 

At the same time, we may observe, the Dialectic of Plato is 
truly a method of Investigation, though it does not penetrate to 
the depth of the modern analysis. It employed deductive 
reasonings ; but these were not essential parts of its method ; 
since the whole was a process of ascent to the theory of the Ideas. 

Afterwards, indeed, Dialectic approximated to what is now 
commonly understood by Logic. The transition was first to the 
consideration of it as a method of drawing out the probable con- 
clusions deducible from given premises. This was natural. 
For in Plato's method every opinion was admitted as an hypo- 
thesis to be examined, in order to rejecting the falsehood and 
eliciting the truth that might be contained in it ; and so far his 
Dialectic might be regarded as a speculation on probabilities. 
This transition prepared the way for a further one, when Dia- 
lectic became strictly the science of Deduction. Attention 
would be drawn more and more to the use of words as instru- 
ments of reasoning, when Dialectic was once exalted into the rank 
of a science. 

The progress seems to be this. The science being cultivated 
primarily with a view to discussion, the importance of language 
in order to reasoning could not fail, from the first direction of 
the mind in this channel, to strike the philosophical observer. 



HIS WRITINGS AND PHILOSOPHY. 231 

The phenomena of sophistical argument would suggest the 
necessity of inquiry into words as they are employed in reason- 
ing. Philosophers, accordingly, would be led to examine into 
the nature of words considered as signs and representatives of 
thought. Thus they would proceed to arrange words into classes, 
according to their import in this respect. Hence would be 
obtained that great division of words into those that denote an 
individual alone, and those that stand both for many and for 
one, or into singular and common ; — the fundamental principle 
of logic properly so called, or of logic as the science is now con- 
sidered. The use of Division and Definition would soon appear. 
These processes, indeed, would be naturally discovered in the 
very prosecution of discussions addressed to the refutation of 
false opinions and popular fallacies. The early dialectics, ac- 
cordingly, abounded in the use of them. 1 Afterwards, as the 
analytical power of language came to be more particularly 
observed, the comiections of words in propositions and argu- 
ments would attract speculation. The possibility of exhibiting 
any given proposition or argument under abstract formulae, in 
which unmeaning symbols were substituted for the terms them- 
selves of the proposition or argument, would at length be dis- 
covered. Thus in the result would be erected a formal science 
of Logic, in which language would be considered as an artificial 
system of signs, and the validity of arguments would be explored 
in their abstract forms, independently of the subject-matter about 
which they happen to be conversant. 

When Plato, however, drew his Theory of Ideas from the 
logical speculations in which his mind was engaged, there was 
no such system as that now found in treatises of Logic. There 
are the materials in the writings of Plato for constructing a 
method of Dialectic, such as the science presented itself to his 

1 Phcedr. p. 362. Tovtiov 5t] eycrye lx vi0V &<J"re ^■eoio'" Kal jxivrot Kai rovs 

avros re epaar^s, cD 3>cu5pe, tuv diacpe- 5vvap.evovs avrb dpav, el p,ev op^rQs ?) p-y 

aeoiv Kai crvuayuryQv, W olosre S) \eyetv Trpocrayopevto, S-eos otde' /caXcD 5e ot)v p.e%pi 

re Kai (ppovelv' kdv re ruP a\\ov ijyrjcroo- roude didkeKTLKOvs. Plato is said to 

/xat dvvarbv eh ev Kai eiri iroWd ire<pv- have been the author of a work :< On 

Kora bpav, tovtov 8ic6«"w " KaTowia'&e pier 1 Divisions," not now extant. 



232 PLATO. 

view; but that method remains, even to this day, to be fully 
explored and stated. It is clear that he had such a system, and 
that his writings proceed on regular method; though he has 
nowhere accurately sketched it, and perhaps never even proposed 
it to himself in the form of a system. His thoughts were 
engaged in this, as in other subjects, in giving the great outlines 
of his philosophy. It was enough for him to have seized the 
bearings of logical Truth on all truth ; and to this general view of 
the science he has made everything secondary and subservient. 

II. The next aspect under which the Theory of Ideas should 
be considered, is that in which it sums up and measures the 
infinites of the sensible world. In this point of view, it more 
immediately represented its Pythagorean prototype, than under 
its logical aspect. It is in reference to this intention of the 
theory that Aristotle objects, that, whilst it professes to give the 
account of things, it introduces an additional number of objects 
in the Ideas themselves ; an absurdity, he observes, like that of 
attempting to facilitate a calculation by adding to the numbers 
to be calculated. 1 It was, accordingly, an endeavour to reckon 
up the individuals of the universe, and exhibit their sum in one 
statement. As Plato's logical speculations gave their colour to 
his whole philosophy, so the devotion of the Pythagoreans to 
mathematics led them to form a mathematical theory of the 
Universe. The universal nature of Number gave them the 
ground for this application of their peculiar studies. For all 
things are in number ; and there is nothing from which the 
notion of number may not be abstracted. That number, then, 
which alone measures all other numbers, — Unity, — would be 
regarded as the common measure of all things. And thus the 
philosophy of the Universe would be reduced to a system of 
calculation ; and the infinity of existing things, and their rela- 
tions, summed up in numbers and the proportions of numbers. 
The greek word logos, whilst it combined in it the notions of 
" word " and " reason," also further combined that of " ratio," and 

1 "ftairep el' rts dpL^/HTJaaL (3ov\6/u,evos, ■z-Xela) 5e vroirjaas apfofiolri. (Aristot. 
eXarrdvuv fxtv 6ptcoi>, o'Iolto fxr) dvi'Tjcrea'&ai, Metaph- i. 9. 



HIS WRITINGS AND PHILOSOPHY. 233 

reasoning and calculating were expressed by the one term 

It appears to have struck the mind of Plato that the theory 
of the Pythagoreans was not sufficiently comprehensive, or even 
ultimate, as an account of the Being of things. The simplicity 
of Number did not adequately explain the great variety of 
natures found in the Universe ; and though the science of Arith- 
metic held almost the highest place in his scale of knowledge, 
on account of its abstract nature, and its leading to the considera- 
tion of Being, apart from the changeable objects of sense ; he 
still viewed it as practically implicated with the physical 
sciences, and, as such, therefore, not strictly and exclusively con- 
versant about Being. In like manner, the science of Geometry, 
though purer than the physical sciences, as being conversant only 
about abstract magnitudes, is excluded by him from the highest 
place. Geometry, no less than Arithmetic, might seem to be 
simply an intellectual contemplation ; since, though it employs 
visible figures in its demonstrations, the demonstrations do not 
properly refer to these, but to the abstract notions which the 
diagrams represent. Yet Geometry, as it assumes its principles, 
and its truths consequently depend on assumptions, which in 
themselves demand evidence, cannot, he observes, rank as a 
science of perfect intelligence. 

Perfect intelligence, m<st$, implies an absolute stay to the 
thought ; something beyond which no further inquiry can be 
made, — which may be seen, as it were, by the mind's eye imme- 
diately in itself. And such an object only is furnished by the Idea, 
Though, accordingly, Plato thus carried his theory beyond that 
of the Pythagoreans, we find him still cherishing the Pythagorean 
doctrine of Number, by assigning to it the second place in his 
scale of knowledge, and only barely distinguishing it, in regard 
to scientific value, from his own theory of Ideas. 2 

When we come indeed to look more closely into his theory 
the mathematical approximation will distinctly appear. The Ideas 
are the finite, applied to the infinite of the sensible world, and 

1 Aristotle, Effic. Phil, supra. 2 Bep. vi. ad. fin. 



234 PLATO. 

thus producing measure and proportion in the Universe. 1 The 
physical sciences, as, for example, Astronomy and Music, are not 
truly scientific ; because, addressing themselves to what is passing 
before the senses in the world, they do not consider the immov- 
able beings themselves, which are only imperfectly represented in 
the observed physical movements. The astronomer computes the 
actual velocities of the heavenly bodies ; the musician counts 
the intervals of sounds. But neither of these is intent on the 
real beings, the Ideas themselves of velocity and of harmony. 
We can discern in such language as this, a mathematical basis of 
thought. Perpetual variations, as contemplated in their incon- 
stancy, admit of no calculation. To estimate them, we must find 
the limit to which they continually approximate ; and we thus, 
as it were, reduce to fixed order the apparent disorder and irre- 
gularity ; and see the variable in its ultimate form of invariable- 
ness. This notion is not fully developed by Plato. But it is 
conveyed in his doctrine of a twofold class of sciences, under the 
same names ; a popular astronomy, for example, and a higher 
astronomy ; a popular music, and a higher music ; a popular 
morality, and a higher morality ; the latter of which are sciences 
of the invariable and the finite, and run up into his Theory of 
Ideas. 2 

III. The third phasis of the Theory is that in which it is a 
philosophy of Being, in opposition to the mere knowledge of 
sensible phenomena. According to the school of Heraclitus, the 
sensible world was ever flowing, ever in a state of " becoming " 
or incipiency ; a mere development of successive phenomena, 
displacing each other without cessation. As duration is no 
positive existence as a whole, but is made up of an infinite 
number of moments, each of which is gone as the succeeding 
moment appears ; so was it asserted generally in the doctrine 
of that school, that every object in the Universe was a mere col- 
lection of successive phenomena. Of nothing could it be affirmed 

1 Phileb. pp. 234-240. ^weiro/ievai avxvai, ttjv didv/j.6TT}Ta %x ov - 

2 Phileb. p. 303. 'fis elal dvo ap&- aai ravrr]- , di>6/j,aros ei>bs KeKoivwvrmivai.. 
fATjTiKal, /ecu rcaVcus ctXXcu dvo roiaurai Also Hep. vi. 



HIS WRITINGS AND PHILOSOPHY. 235 

that it IS. The very sensations, no less than the objects of them, 
were in constant production ; being the momentary, ever-vary- 
ing results of the concourse of agent and patient. Colour, for 
example, as the object, and sight of the colour in the eye, as the 
sensation, are momentary relations, simultaneously produced 
by something that acts in the coloured object, at the moment, 
on something that receives the impression in the eye. This 
doctrine resolved all knowledge into sensation, and (which was 
equivalent to this) made " man the measure of all things," accord- 
ing to the celebrated enunciation of Protagoras. 

Plato saw that, if these views were admitted as an account of 
the Universe, his whole Dialectic must fall to the ground. 1 It 
would be nothing but miserable trifling, to try to call forth those 
reasons of things which he conceived to be in the mind, if know- 
ledge were of this fluctuating character. There could not, in 
fact, be then any such reasons. There was nothing stable, — 
nothing that remained in the mind, — to serve as the standing 
criterion of true and false opinions. There would be no dis- 
tinguishing whether all that passed in life were not a dream, or 
whether the seeming occurrences in dreams were not rather the 
realities. Some sure criterion was therefore wanted, to which 
the phenomena of sensation might be referred. The theory of 
Ideas, as a theory of Being, furnished this. 

Plato admitted, accordingly, the perpetual flux of sensations 
and their objects, as taught by Heraclitus, whilst he refuted the 
sophistical extravagances into which the doctrine had been 
carried. Granting, therefore, that there was no test of truth or 
falsehood in the sensations themselves, he points out, that the 
ground of fallaciousness is in the judgments formed by the mind 
concerning the impressions of the senses. The soul is endued 
with a common power of perception, to which the reports of the 
different senses are referred, and by means of which the mind is 
enabled to compare past and present sensations of the same kind, 
as also different sensations with one another. It is in the con- 

1 Thecetet. p. 90. rb §£ dr) ifiov re /cat yekwra opXccrKapofiev' oT/xcu Se kcll tyfi- 
ttjs ifxrjs rexvys rr}$ jxatepriK^s aLyd, 6<jov iracra y\ rod dcaX^yeaOai xpay^areia. 



236 PLATO. 

elusions then formed on these comparisons that we are to seek 
for knowledge ; or in the purely mental processes ; abandoning 
altogether the mere informations of sense. 1 

He was led, accordingly, to examine these processes of the 
mind, in order to discover the grounds of truth and knowledge. 
He observed that when the mind compares two sensations, and 
decides on their similarity or difference, there is always some 
ground on which that judgment is made. When, for instance, 
it decides on the equality of two things, there is a standard to 
which they are referred, the general notion of equality itself, 
which serves as a middle term for testing the equality of the two 
things compared. In like manner, there is always, whenever a 
comparison is made by the mind, some general principle, which 
is the medium of the comparison. And this is a principle not 
in any way produced by the sensations ; for it is evidently prior 
to them, and independent of them ; being appealed to by the 
mind as a criterion of them. This general principle, then, is in 
every instance the Idea ; and not being formed by the sensations, 
it is not subject to their variableness. It remains unmoved, and 
the same, amidst the flow of the sensations, or of the objects of 
the sensations ; — the standing criterion of all the judgments of 
thje mind to which it applies. 2 

Hence we may see the peculiar meaning of the term * Idea " 
in Plato's philosophy. It consists in its contrast with the objects 
of sensation. The latter never attain to any definite perfect 
form — to any clear outline, as it were, to the eye. They flow 
and have vanished before they could attain to such form ; since, 
in the very succeeding one another, they not only pass away, 
but undergo alteration. But the standard to which they are 
referred in the mind, is a positive defined shape, or form, or 
species, simple and uniform, analogous to an object of sight of 
which we can clearly trace the whole outline by the eye. 3 For 



1 Thecetet. pp. 139-144. Platone ita nominatam ; nos recte spe- 

2 Phcedo, pp. 170, 230-236; Rep. vii. ciem possumus dicere. (Cicer. Acad. 
pp. 145-147; Thecetet. Qu. i. 8.) Formse sunt, quas Grseci 

3 Hanc illi ideara appellabant, jam a Ideas vocant, etc. Cicer. Topic. 7. 



HIS WRITINGS AND PHILOSOPHY. 237 

the like reason, the term, exemplar, iraoahuyiLu, is also applied to 
denote the Idea. As the one perfect standard to which all the 
reports of the senses are referred, it appears in the light of a 
pattern, to which they would be conformed, but for that inces- 
sant mutability which necessarily belongs to them. This, how- 
ever, was rather the Pythagorean view of general principles than 
the Platonic ; though Plato himself not unfrequently recurs to it. 
Plato, at the same time, in thus constituting Ideas the sole 
absolute criteria of real existence, did not intend to deny all reality 
whatever to conclusions drawn from our sensible experience, 
such as those of the physical sciences. But he means, in the 
first place, to shew the delusive character of all informations of 
sense which are not corrected by the internal reason of the mind. 
In the next place, his design is to point out the inferior know- 
ledge, which every other kind of evidence conveys, but that 
which is drawn from the intuitive perceptions of the mind. The 
informations of sense, he teaches, are only a knowledge of sem- 
blances or idols, s/xadia, conjecture founded on mere images of 
the truth. He describes this kind of knowledge by an admirable 
illustration from a supposed case of men placed in a long cavern, 
with their bodies so chained from infancy, that they can only 
look before them, whilst the light of a fire from behind casts on 
the side opposite to them, the shadows of vessels, and of statues 
of stone and wood, carried along a track leading upwards from 
the cavern, by persons who are themselves concealed by a wall, 
like the exhibitors of puppets. As men so circumstanced would 
see nothing of themselves, and of each other, or of the things 
thus carried along, but the shadows, they would mistake the 
shadows for the realities ; they would speak of the shadows as 
if these were the things ; and if any voice was heard from the 
persons carrying along the figures, they would think the sounds 
proceeded from the passing shadow. 1 Just like this, he declares, 
is the influence of education in the lower world of sense on the 
minds of men. They must be carried up from this cavern, in 
which they see everything only by an artificial light, to the light 

1 liej). vii. ad. init. 



238 PLATO. 

of the sun itself, to the region of Ideas, where alone objects are 
seen as they are in themselves. 

As to the knowledge conveyed by the physical sciences, 
neither is this properly knowledge. It amounts only, as he 
states it, to belief or opinion. These are less intellectual than 
the mathematical sciences, because they are conversant about 
human opinions and desires, or about the production and com- 
position of things, or about the means of sustaining things pro- 
duced and compounded. 1 They are therefore as unstable as the 
things about which they are. But they are still not devoid of 
evidence, so far as they collect actual informations of the senses, 
and do not learn from mere shadows. This is implied in his 
calling such knowledge belief, and distinguishing it from con- 
jecture ; though he is rigid in preserving the exclusive preroga- 
tive of Truth to the knowledge of the Ideas. 

The evidence of Experience was necessarily slighted in such a 
philosophy, and condemned as insufficient for the discovery of 
Truth. For what is Experience but the memory of several similar 
previous informations of sense, combined into one general con- 
clusion ? And though Aristotle allows that such a general con- 
clusion, in which the mind acquiesces, might be regarded as 
scientific, 2 in respect of things generated, such as are the prin- 
ciples of Art, this could not be admitted by a philosopher who 
placed the objects of sensation out of the pale of Being. It was 
not enough for Plato's system to answer in favour of the scientific 
value of Experience, that, though this and that particular instance 
of an information of sense had no immovable truth in it, yet, 
from the observation of a number of similar instances, a general 
uniformity might be inferred, and an immovable general prin- 
ciple established. He would grant that generalization was a 
corrective of experience. For this he did when he granted some 
importance to the arts in education, and for the purposes of life. 



1 Rep. vii. p. 165. eKeivois to avrb,lr^x v V^ &PXV Kai ^'cr??- 

2 'E/c 5' i/ATretpias ?} e/c wavrbs rjpe/xrjcrav- firjs' eav fxh irepl yfreaip, rix v V^' ^ v 5e 
ros rod KcfcbXov ev rrj ipvxf), rod iubs irepi to op, i7rio-T7]p.r)s. (Aristot. Analyt. 
irapa ra wb\\a, 6 &p ip dwao-ip eV eufj Post. ii. 15, ult.) 



HIS WRITINGS AND PHILOSOPHY. 239 

But Truth with him must, in all cases, be universal, not simply 
general : it must be that which is always the same, not simply 
that which is only for the most part. And the highest degree of 
the evidence of Experience, even that which amounts to what is 
called moral certainty, falls short of this absolute universality. 
It might be urged, for example, that, though what was sweet to 
one person and at one time, might be bitter to another person 
and at another time ; and though what seemed the same sensa- 
tion of sweet, was not in fact the same at two successive 
moments, but a reproduction ; still it was possible, by combin- 
ing recollections of many similar instances, to form a general 
notion which should adequately characterize that sensation. 
Still Plato would say, this was only belief or opinion, and not 
science. The object of science must be such as cannot be other- 
wise : it must be absolutely one and the same permanent being ; 
you must altogether quit the stream of the world of sense, and 
land on the rock of unchangeable eternal Being. 

Thus Bhetoric is strongly reprobated by Plato, on the very 
ground on which it is systematically taught by Aristotle, of its 
being nothing more than an instrument of persuasion, or an art of 
speculating on the means of persuasion. Much of his invective 
indeed derives its point from its application to the servile rheto- 
ricians of his day. Still we find him condemning Ehetoric on 
the abstract ground of its having no higher view than persuasion. 
In the modern view of the subject, as in Aristotle's, Ehetoric is 
a real science, so far as it is framed on just conclusions respect- 
ing those modes of speaking, or writing, which excite interest 
and produce conviction. With Plato it is mere quackery ; and 
for this reason, that it is founded on experience of what persuades ; 
being only an Ifiimgia, or rgiQ?i, a knack acquired by experience 
and converse with the world ; an accomplishment, learned by 
practice, without any real knowledge, in flattering the passions 
of men. He in fact regarded Experience as corresponding 
with what we call empiricism ; contrasting it with the conclu- 
sions of abstract reason, as we contrast an illiterate and 
unscientific use of Experience with that of the philosopher. 1 

1 Gorgias, p. 117, et seq. ; Phadr. p. 363. 



240 PLATO. 

Looking to that sort of Experience on which the popular 
teaching of the Sophists was founded, Plato, we should say, w T as 
fully justified in his condemnation of the experimental method of 
his day. It was in truth mere quackery. It was content with 
shadows and images of the truth, and entirely directed to pro- 
ducing a desired effect, without caring for the absolute truth ; — 
a shallow philosophy of sensation, not founded in the nature of 
things. He had thus to contend against a system, which dis- 
torted that criterion of truth, which man has, in himself, by the 
right use of his reason conjointly with his experience, to the 
undermining of all truth and reality. This empirical system was 
the crying evil of those times. It had infected politics, and 
education, and private intercourse, as well as philosophy. In 
opposition to it, he had to take up an antithetical position ; to 
call in question the existing acceptation and use of the human 
criterion of truth ; to limit it within its proper bounds, and 
guard against its perversion. Accordingly the whole stress of 
his philosophy is on this point. It is a perpetual polemic against 
the sophistical principle, that " man is the measure of all things." 
This amply accounts for his disparaging so much as he does, the 
scientific value of Experience, and insisting on the necessity of 
the existence of higher principles than those of Experience, in 
order that the mind may duly receive and appreciate the infor- 
mation of sense. He taught men, at any rate, to perceive that 
the popular notion of that Evidence of truth which man has in 
his own nature, was false and deceptive, and that in all judg- 
ments and reasonings there is -also something more than is merely 
of man. 

IV. The fourth leading point of view under which the 
Theory of Ideas remains to be considered, is its aspect as it is a 
theory of the Cause of the Universe. Under this aspect it is 
identified with the speculation into the Chief Good. Here it is 
an account, at once, of the First Principle of Motion, and of the 
End to which all things tend as their perfection and ultimate 
good. According to Plato, there was no other cause worthy of 
the name, or which really accounted for the phenomena of the 



HIS WRITINGS AND PHILOSOPHY. 241 

Universe, but " The G-ood," or, as it is technically called, the 
Final Cause. The early speculations of philosophers had been 
chiefly directed to the material phenomena of the Universe, and 
had attempted to account for them in a rude manner, by referring 
them to some one or more of the material elements. Some, 
indeed, had introduced also moral influences into their theory. 
The Pythagoreans combined with their speculation of the 
mysterious unity, the notion of Love as the one-making principle. 
The Ionic school, however, appears to have led the opinion of 
philosophers in regard to the cause of the Universe at the time 
of Plato. And though Anaxagoras of that School asserted the 
ascendency of Mind, he had lost sight of his great theory in the 
explanations from material causes, to which he descended in the 
completion of his system. Socrates began a strenuous opposition 
to the physical philosophers. Plato carried on that opposition, 
and, blending the familiar ethics of Socrates with the moral and 
theological mysticism of the Pythagoreans, established the Final 
Cause or theory of " the Good," as supreme over the domain of 
science. 

Anaxagoras had certainly prepared the way for the theory. 
Plato took up his doctrine of a Divine Intelligence, and gave it 
that development which, as taught by Anaxagoras himself, it 
yet waited to receive. It was but a vain theory of a Supreme 
Mind (sublime and important as the simple enunciation of the 
great truth was), which did not also exhibit the Supreme Mind 
as operating by design, and diffusing the energy of its intelli- 
gence and goodness, as well as of its power, throughout its ope- 
rations. 

The Supreme Mind, therefore, according to Plato, must be 
conceived, as exemplifying the attributes of its own nature in 
the works which have proceeded from it. If it be granted that 
there is a Supreme Mind ; that must be the true measure of all 
things in the Universe. All things must have been framed 
according to the scheme which such a mind would contemplate 
in their production. As Intelligence, it cannot be regarded but- 
as working for some object, hsud tou ; for by this is intelligence 

Pv 



242 PLATO. 

distinguished from unintelligent force ; and the only object to 
the Supreme Intelligence is the most perfect nature, which is 
itself. The pattern of its own perfections, therefore, must have 
been present to it, and in its design, in the construction of the 
Universe. In other words, the Deity himself is not only the 
Author of all things, but he has designed to exemplify in them 
his own attributes. The principle, accordingly, by which all 
true philosophy must hold, and which it must carry out into its 
speculations, is, that not man, but God, is " the Measure of all 
things." And hence, whenever the proper being of anything is to 
be explored, it must be studied in that light in which it is seen as 
a work of the Supreme Mind, designed after the pattern of the 
Divine perfections. In such a contemplation, the theory of the 
Best is the view by which Philosophy must be guided ; for, in 
Ancient Philosophy, an object of intelligent aim, and good, are 
equivalent terms. The object at which the most perfect Intelli- 
gence aims, must be, therefore, that which is best ; and in tracing- 
out, accordingly, the workings of the Divine Mind in the world, 
we must look for "the best" in everything. That notion of 
everything by which it is " best," is both its real nature, and the 
cause of its being produced. 

But why is not everything, as it is actually seen, a work of 
"the best?" why is not good visibly impressed on everything 
as it stands forth to the view ? why must we, in short, resort 
to the Idea of good, in order to ascertain its nature, instead of 
taking it simply as it appears ? 

The antagonist force of Unreason in the nature of that 
which has Body, and is apprehended by the senses, occasions all 
the imperfection and evil in the world, as the world actually 
exists. It subsisted already in the mass of disorder and con- 
fusion which the Divine Intelligence, by its operation, had 
brought into order and regularity of motion ; and it still sub- 
sists, though reduced into subordination to intelligence. It is 
overruled so as to minister to the designs of Mind, but still 
impedes by its contrariety of nature the development of good in 
the world. And thus Plato says, that it is impossible for evils 



HIS WRITINGS AND PHILOSOPHY. 243 

to perish out of the world, for that there must ever exist a 
contrariety to good. 1 Evil pre-existed ; and evil accordingly 
must be displaced by the presence of good ; as contraries are 
displaced by contraries ; and as all generation or production is 
carried on by a process from contrary to contrary. Thus, 
though evil retires before good in the world of generated things, 
evil still manifests itself in the very act of its retiring before 
good ; and a perpetual opposition of good and evil remains. 
What we see, accordingly, in the world, is not the perfect 
accomplishment of good, but effort and tendency after good in 
all things. The effects of a straggle between reason and un- 
reason are manifested, on the one hand, in the evanescent 
imperfect nature of all sensible things ; and, on the other hand, 
in their constant renewing, or in that undying vigour with 
which they flow on, and are reproduced, and aim at a perfection 
beyond themselves. 

Though, therefore, the Divine Artificer has designed every- 
thing in the world for the best, they are not actually the best 
as they are presented to our senses. They are the best that such 
things can be ; but they do not attain to the Idea of Good, 
according to which they have been made. Time, for example, 
only imperfectly represents the Divine Eternity, which is its true 
Idea. In Eternity, there is no distinction of past, present, and 
future. But the bodily nature of things will not admit of this 
co-instantaneous development of the Divine Idea. Existence is 
here broken up into successive moments ; and these successive 
moments, marked by the periodic motions of the heavenly 
bodies, introduce the distinctions of number into the simple idea 
of duration. Again, the velocities of the heavenly bodies, 
which are observed by the astronomer, must be conceived as 
very inadequate representatives of the " real velocities performed 
in the true number and true figures," 2 which are the " Ideas" 
after which they have been established. Or, again, it is clear 
that the ideas of the good, and the just, and the honourable, and 

1 Leg. iv. ' ATroXecr^ai ra naica ddvparov' virevavTiov yap, k. t. \. 
2 Eepub. vii. p. 158 ; also Philebvs, p. 303. 



244 PLATO. 

the beautiful, as they are seen in the world around us, are only 
imperfectly developed. Our thoughts are distracted in the 
contemplation of them in the world, by the multiplicity of forms 
under which they are apprehended by men ; and it seems to the 
superficial glance as if there were no one perfect standard of 
each. At the same time, we are able to trace evident signs of 
such a standard, when we look thoughtfully at the course of 
things. We cannot doubt, on such examination, that these 
principles exist, and are working their way, and that the Uni- 
verse has been constructed after the pattern of them. But all 
that the most attentive study will disclose to us as actually 
observed, is tendency towards these principles — a becoming or 
incipiency of being. 1 We do not see their full effect, or what 
would be their effect, if the world were such as to give them free 
scope and exercise, and if the impressions of sense did not 
diversify and obscure the presentations of them to our minds. 
Must we not say, then, that if we formed our notions of these 
principles from the visible world, and the impressions of sense, 
that we must estimate them improperly ? And must we not 
rather elevate our minds to the Ideas themselves, after which 
the Universe has been constituted in its present order, and take 
Our measures of them from the Divine Being, whose goodness, 
and truth, and beauty, they represent ? 

Thus did the Theory of Ideas serve as a moral explanation 
of the course of Nature, and meet the demand of Philosophy, by 
removing the perplexity of the mind on the contemplation of 
the apparent disorder of the world, and giving a firm stay to 
the thought in this direction. This apparent disorder has been 
the constant appeal of the atheist and the sceptic in all ages. 
And in Plato's time there was need, we find from several pas- 
sages in his writings, of an answer on the part of Philosophy to 
speculative objections on this ground. The Theory of Ideas 



1 Plucd. 170. Jldvra ra kv reus ala- efoai olov £k€lvo, iarl 5£ avrov (pavXSrepa. 

^rjaeo-iv eKeivov re optyercu rovd' 6 earip He goes on to say this applies to all 

Uov koX avrov ivdetarepd eariv. Ibid. subjects as well. 
171. irpo'd-vp.e'iTai ^h irdvx ra roiavra 



HIS WRITINGS AND PHILOSOPHY. 245 

supplied this answer. By the theory of a perfect model of good, 
imperfectly wrought out in the visible Universe, the existence 
of evil was accounted for in some degree ; and the eye of thought 
was enabled to see a chain of goodness, and beauty, and order, 
binding together the most untoward appearances of the moral 
world. As the Pythagoreans enchained these disjointed portions 
of the moral fabric, by supposing a fundamental Unity per- 
vading the whole, and reducing the multiple and the unlimited to 
definite proportion, or imagining a sort of key-note modulating the 
apparent discords of nature 1 — so Plato made the one moral good 
the all-pervading moderator of the system of the Universe. The 
abstract notions, the genera, and the species, and the definitions, 
which dialectical science brought out by the aid of language, pre- 
sented the materials for extending the moral view to other no- 
tions besides those strictly moral ; and thus a theological and 
moral complexion was spread over the whole region of Philosophy. 

Ideas of evil were evidently excluded. " The good" could 
not. be the cause of all things, but only of those that were well 
constituted ; of evils it was causeless. 2 Evil, as we have seen, 
had no exemplar or pattern in the nature of the Author of the 
Universe. It was a condition of that bodily nature on which 
the good was actively displayed. Evil arose from the nature of 
the " diverse" 3 inherent in body ; that nature in body by which 
it was contradistinguished from the " sameness * belonging to the 
Ideas. 

In considering the Theory of Ideas under the different 
aspects which it presents, w T e have, in fact, taken a summary 
viev/ of the whole of Plato's philosophy. This theory is the 
cardinal principle of the whole. The speculations on particular 



1 Timceus, p. 307. Aea/i&v 5' 6 nd\- is rerpdycovos avev xj/oyov ; and the 

Xiaros, os av avrbv Kal to, £vj>5ovp,eva words ir\T]p.p.e\ws, i/x/xeX&s, and the 

ort/xaXiaTa %v irotrj, tovto de irtyvKev dva- like, borrowed from their philosophy, 

Xo7ta KdWiGrra diro rekeiv biroTav yap are familiarly used in a moral sense. 
dp&pLLovTpiQv, k. r. A. ThePythngoreans 2 Hep. ii. p. 251. Ovk dpairavrtov ye 

were f jnd of describing moral ideas by alriov to dyaSfbv, d\Xd rdv p.ev ev ex ov - 

terms drawn from mathematics and ruv ahiov, t&v U kclkZv dvainov. 
music. The good man, for example, 3 Tim. jp 315. Oarepov w/cris. 



246 PLATO. 

branches of philosophy are all included in this one theory, 
which binds them together and explains them. For when the 
mind had once risen to the contemplation of the Ideas, it needed 
no further helps from observation or study of Nature to under- 
stand all knowledge. The mind was then in possession of the 
only true principles of knowledge ; and to enter into the con- 
sideration of material and sensible phenomena, was only to 
return to the darkness and the dreams from which the eye of 
the intellect had been purified — to quit the light of the sun for 
the cavern of shadows. 

Accordingly, all his writings are devoted to the establishment 
of this theory. Proceeding on that notion of the importance of 
the theory which he inculcates, he bends every thought to this 
one point. No one science is set forth by him in detail ; no 
one subject obtains with him a full and explicit consideration. 
All is resolved into its most abstract and general view, that the 
mind may be led to see the common principles of all Truth ; so 
intent is he throughout on his theory of Ideas, whatever may 
be his immediate subject of discussion. He assumes hypotheses, 
and examines them, and refutes them in the way of argument, 
without pronouncing on either side of a particular question, as 
if indifferent about the establishment of any mere opinion, and 
desirous only of clearing his way for the perception of his 
theory. 

But to place that theory in its full light, we should advert to 
the theories of Knowledge and of the Soul, which are intimately 
connected with it. These theories contain his account of the 
origin of the Ideas. 

Knowledge, according to Plato, is Eeminiscence, 'Ava^vjj^/c, 
a recovery of forgotten truth, which had been possessed by the 
soul in a former state of existence. His Dialectic professed to 
do nothing more than to lead the mind, by apt interrogation, to 
perceive the Truth for itself. It abandoned the attempt to com- 
municate the Truth by didactic propositions. It only removed 
falsehood, and left the truth to its own course, to suggest itself 
to the mind, now disabused of its error and prejudice. It 



HIS WRITINGS AND PHILOSOPHY. 247 

appealed to principles as certain criteria of truth, and yet con- 
fessed its inability to state those principles, and place them 
distinctly before the mind of the learner. They were simply 
referred to as existing in every mind, whatever might be the 
peculiar opinions of the individual to whom the questions of 
the dialectician were addressed. How, then, could those prin- 
ciples have been acquired ? No time in the present life could 
be pointed out when they first appeared in the mind. They are 
prior to the sensations ; for the sensations are referred to them ; 
and the sensations we have had from our birth. These standard 
principles, then, must have been acquired in a previous state of 
existence, and what is commonly called learning is, in fact, 
Eeminiscence ; and to know is, properly speaking, to remember. 1 

In proof of this account of the origin of the Ideas, Plato 
introduces Socrates making an experiment on the mind of an 
uneducated person. Socrates is represented putting a series of 
questions to a slave of Meno, one of his disciples, and at length 
eliciting from the youth, after repeated correction of his errors, 
a right enunciation of a geometrical truth. Socrates then 
points triumphantly to the instance, and bids Meno observe how 
he had taught the youth nothing, but simply interrogated him 
as to his opinions, whilst the youth had himself recalled for 
himself the knowledge thus evidently existing in his mind. 2 

Again, in illustration of the same, Plato refers to instances 
of association and suggestion. Often, on the sensation of a 
particular object, we are reminded of something else not present 
to us. On seeing a lyre, or a dress, which one whom we love 
has used, a thought occurs of the person to whom it belonged. 
So also, on seeing pictures of objects, persons and objects will 
be suggested to the mind, unlike as well as like to the objects 
in the picture. Or one of two friends being presented to our 
view, we are reminded of the other who is absent. 3 

Now, the instances here referred to, both those of association 
or suggestion, and those of the self-teaching of the mind by the 

1 Fhcedo, pp. 1G6-174. a Meno, pp. 352-361. 3 Kccdo. 



248 PLATO. 

excitement of its reflection, are highly interesting and important 
in the history of the origin of ideas. But they do not prove the 
point for which Plato adduces them. The case of the slave 
interrogated by Socrates certainly shews that there are prin- 
ciples in the understanding which are not derived from external 
information, but which only wait to be developed by occasions 
apt to call them forth. And as to the instances of association 
or suggestion, we can only say, it is an ultimate fact of our 
mental constitution, that particular objects serve to bring others 
before our thoughts. All such instances are illustrations of the 
fact, that the mind is not passive in its admission of truth, 
receiving knowledge simply as something infused in it from 
without ; but that its knowledge is, in great measure owing to 
its exertion of its faculties, and its bringing to bear on the 
instruction given its own intuitive convictions ; — that conse- 
quently the excellence of all teaching consists, not so much in 
the positive mass of instruction conveyed, as in stirring up the 
mind to exercise the powers with which it is gifted, and to learn 
from itself. 

The stress of Plato's argument in favour of the theory of 
Eeminiscence, and of the previous existence of the Soul as a 
consequence of it, is laid, we find, on the ground of the priority 
of the Ideas compared with the several particular sensations 
which are referred to them as criteria. But the priority which 
he here claims for the Ideas, is not, in fact, a precedence in 
the order of time, but of logic. In the process of reasoning, 
general principles are prior to, and more known than, the 
particulars which fall under them ; because, in possessing them 
we possess the particulars, and the particulars, as yet unknown, 
are known by deduction from them as already known. Thus 
we familiarly speak of a conclusion as following from the pre- 
mises. Now, Plato appears to have transferred a priority of this 
kind to the Ideas, and then to have concluded their priority 
absolutely, as principles existing in the mind independently of 
the occasions on which they are called forth. But to establish 
a theory of Eeminiscence, it was further required to be shewn, 



HIS WRITINGS AND PHILOSOPHY. 249 

that the ideas are prior in the order of time, — that we possess 
them antecedently to, and independently of, all experience. The 
instance which he has given of the way in which a mathematical 
conclusion is reached by the simple leading of the mind in the 
right track, is an instance of what has in modern philosophy 
been more properly called " Suggestion," — not of Eeminiscence. 
So far from being an instance of Eeminiscence, it shews, on the 
contrary, that the general principles of the mind are developed 
subsequently to the particular occasions which suggest them. It 
shews, further, that these principles are in some way dependent 
on such occasions for their development, though not dependent 
on them for their truth and reality ; for the mind accepts them 
as true, and as the criteria of all other truth, at the moment 
when they are presented to it. This, then, is what is really 
illustrated in Plato's instance in the Meno. Geometrical science 
is the best illustration of it, though it is seen also in all our 
judgments and reasonings ; because the remote conclusions to 
which we are brought by the chain of exact demonstration in 
that science from a few very simple definitions, present the fact 
most strikingly. Those conclusions are clearly far beyond the 
apparent compass of the definitions themselves. They are strictly 
deduced from them, however, and with an irresistible cogency of 
argument. The wonder is accounted for by the fact to which 
Plato has called our attention. The demonstration of the pro- 
blem appeals in every successive step to the intuitive convictions 
of the mind. Ideas are suggested by which the statements at 
each point of the proof are tested ; and we sanction the conclu- 
sion ultimately, because the process by which we arrive at it has 
been approved throughout by clear principles of our own minds ; 
and the definitions alone would not suffice for the fabric of truth 
developed from them, unless with the light and co-operation of 
these secret intuitions of the mind itself. 

But though the theory of Eeminiscence has not been satis- 
factorily made out by Plato, he has the merit of having distinctly 
noticed and marked, in speculating on the origin of the Ideas, a 
class of notions of which no previous account, as it seems, had 



250 PLATO. 

been given. The philosophy of sensation had before his time 
chiefly engaged the attention of thinking men, whether of those 
of the Eleatic school, who made everything " stationary," or of 
the Ionic, who made everything "flow." 1 It had been carried 
into the extreme of refinement by the Sophists, its devotees, 
when Plato commenced his antagonistic system. He found that 
this philosophy was too narrow a basis for the structure of 
science, and that it could not stand alone. He saw that it 
left altogether unexplored the perceptions of the mind itself, 
such, for example, as the notions of equality, identity, time, 
causation, right, etc. ; and that these notions were, in truth, more 
important for the establishment of science, than those which 
had previously chiefly attracted the attention of philosophers. 
He applied himself accordingly to examine and characterize 
these principles. The main thing to be accomplished in such 
an inquiry, was to distinguish them accurately from the infor- 
mations of sense ; to shew that they were not included in, or in 
any way derived out of, the informations of sense, but developed 
by the workings of mind. This fact he has recorded in his 
theory of Eeminiscence, — a term, expressing the point of con- 
trast in his method, to that of the empirical philosophers before 
him exclusively founded on Sensation. 

The truth and importance, accordingly, of Plato's Theory of 
Ideas, appear in this ; that by that theory he laid a stable founda- 
tion of science, in the principles themselves of the human mind. 
His error is, that he carried that theory too far ; that he included 
in it notions which are not part of the fundamental principles of 
the mind, and thus involved his theory in vagueness and paradox. 
The war of Nominalism and Eealism is well known to every one 
who has looked into the History of Philosophy, or of Theological 
opinion. This found its occasion in the wide generalization of 
the Ideal Theory. Had Plato restricted his theory to such 
notions as really exist in the mind ; and had he not extended 
it, without discrimination, to those which belong to general 

1 Plato characterizes them; the one as the rod 6Vros arao-iwrcu ; the others, as 
oi peovres. Thecet. 



HIS WRITINGS AND PHILOSOPHY. 251 

terms, and which are purely notional, and are only real in that 
sense as acts or states of the thinking mind ; there would not 
have been that ground for controversy on the subject. As the 
case has been, — one class of disputants, looking to the general- 
izations of language, the genera and species of logic, took the 
nominalist view of the subject, — imputing to the whole of the 
ideas the attribute of one portion of them ; — the other class of 
disputants, justly observing the reality of certain general prin- 
ciples, as objects of thought, became the advocates of realism 
throughout. What has been already said on the dialectical origin 
of the theory, will sufficiently account for the confusion of two 
such dissimilar classes of principles in Plato's system. 

How shall we wonder, therefore, that the great logical 
philosopher who followed him should find it necessary to combat 
the theory of Ideas in the undefined form in which it had 
been left by its author. As thus left, it stood in the way of 
those exact arrangements of the objects of thought which the 
rigorous method of Aristotle required, and introduced a class of 
existences for which he could find no place in his system. 

Nor, further, will it be matter of wonder that controversies 
should have arisen in the schools respecting the nature of the 
Ideas ; such as, whether they subsisted by themselves, or were 
bodies, or were actually separable from sensible things, or only 
separable from them in thought ; or whether they were locally 
situated anywhere in the Universe, or only in the Divine Mind. 
The establishing of the theory in its general form was the 
great business of Plato : it was enough for him to have pro- 
jected it above the horizon of philosophy. Others would 
elaborate it after him with more or less skill. Various specu- 
lations would be raised concerning it ; and controversy would 
at length reduce it to more definite form, and a precision beyond 
the contemplation of its author. 

But, however just and important the Ideal Theory is in its 
connection with metaphysical science, it is but too clear that 
it retarded the advancement of sound physical philosophy, by its 
substitution of final causes for physical, and consequently with- 



252 PLATO. 

drawing attention entirely from the latter. It would follow, 
indeed, from the suspicion thrown over the informations of 
sense, and the undervaluing of experience, that physical science 
would be slighted under such a system of philosophy. But 
the dominion of the theory of Ideas would necessarily exclude 
any other consideration in order to the Truth, but that of 
tendencies or final causes. No other view of Nature, but that 
supplied by this theory, would be conceived to possess the 
stability which science demanded. Accordingly, hypotheses 
would occupy the place of investigation here. The philosopher 
would be speculating on what ought to be, instead of observing 
accurately what is ; and assuming a priori notions of " the best," 
in order to determine the law of physical facts. The principle, 
" that all things are constituted for the best," no doubt holds 
good in physics as well as in other studies of the Divine work- 
manship; but it is here the termination of inquiry, not the 
commencement. It may even be employed instrumentally in 
the process of inquiry, to lead the mind to a point to which 
investigation should be directed. And this it may effect in two 
ways : either, from considering the good intended in the structure 
of some object, we may be led to see the parts of that structure 
in a way which discloses their real organization, and which we 
should otherwise not have observed ; or, from taking our view 
of an object, not as it is actually exhibited in inferior specimens, 
or in those states of it in which it is seen only in progress, or 
under distortion, but from the most perfect specimens, — those 
most answerable to a divine intention or tendency to the best, — 
we may judge what it is, by considering what it would or should 
he. And this especially holds good in morals. But to lay down 
Final causes as principles from which the truths of physics may 
be deduced, is, as Bacon says, to corrupt Natural philosophy 
with Theology, and to render it barren of all fruits. 

Such, then, is the state of Plato's Natural Philosophy. In 
fact, though he asserts the importance of Physics in his own 
sense of the term, the science has no place in his philosophy. 
He goes so far indeed as to say that no art can flourish apart 



HIS WRITINGS AND PHILOSOPHY. 253 

from a knowledge of physical truth ; and he attributes the im- 
perfect Rhetoric of his day to its want of such a foundation. 
But even whilst he imputes the superiority of Pericles as an 
orator to his studies under Anaxagoras, he strongly objects to 
the system of that philosopher, as we have already seen, on 
account of his leaving out all consideration of Final causes. 

Accordingly, in the dialogue which fills up this department 
of his system, he speaks in the person of the Pythagorean, 
Timseus, and strictly follows the Pythagorean notions. The 
detail of this dialogue consists of a history of the order of the 
formation of the Universe in all its parts ; commencing with an 
account of the Universe at large, and the hierarchy of the heavens, 
and ending with a minute explanation of the structure of man, 
in regard to his moral and intellectual, as well as his physical 
powers. And here mathematical figures and proportions are 
the principles into which the composition and motions of all 
bodies are resolved. But the theory on which the whole specu- 
lation turns, and which gives the explanation of the phenomena, 
is the theory of " the Best." It is an account of Good operating 
throughout the Universe, conforming everything to itself, and 
constraining the untoward nature of Body to yield to its sovereign 
power. A perfectly intelligent and good Author of all things is 
assumed ; and his order of proceeding is inferred from that 
which presents itself to our view as "the best." Thus the 
Father of the Universe constructs it after the eternal unchanging 
pattern ; " for that is the noblest of generated things, and the 
best of causes." He formed by his immediate operation what- 
ever is of eternal unchanging nature. Nothing, indeed, but 
Himself, is immortal and indissoluble by its own nature ; but, 
good as he is, he can never be disposed to destroy what is good. 
And therefore the fabric of the Universe and the celestial beings, 
the generated and visible divinities included in it,' (with the highest 
order of whom Plato's description identifies the luminaries of 
the heavens), subsist eternally, not of themselves, but by virtue of 
their participation of Good. 1 Whatever is subject to death, — as 

1 Timceus, pp. 303, 325. 



254 PLATO. 

the bodily nature of man and brutes, — being imperfect, is the 
work of the generated divinities, imitating the power of the 
Supreme. It is with these secondary Gods that he connects the 
popular mythology ; deriving from them the parentage of Saturn, 
and Jove, and the other objects of heathen worship; and leaving 
the further account of their origin to be given by the current 
tradition. Thus the supreme God is described as the Author of 
all good throughout the Universe ; and where anything of evil or 
imperfection is, the agency of the subordinate powers, and the 
irrational nature of body, are interposed to guard him from 
imputation of evil. 

Derived as his history of the Universe evidently is from the 
early theogonies, it is very remarkable that it keeps clear alto- 
gether of the oriental dualism. There is but One Active Prin- 
ciple in his system of the Universe, the Principle of Good ; and 
nothing forms, or moves, but that only. " Let us not," indeed, he 
expressly says in another place, " conceive that there are any two 
gods, of contrary sentiments, causing the revolution of the 
Universe. 1 He seems indeed to personify the irrational force of 
body, where he describes it under the name of ' Avayxjj, Necessity. 
But he is evidently only speaking in metaphorical language here ; 
(that language probably derived from personifications found in 
the early cosmogonies) ; intending to represent that inert power 
by which Nature, as we speak, acts according to its laws. 

It must have been observed all along how important a place 
the nature of Body occupies in Plato's philosophy. He has 
nowhere, however, attempted to give any positive description 
of the nature of Body. It is in truth, rather a condition in 
order to the development of the Ideal theory in connection with 
the phenomena of sensation, than any positive nature, according 
to his conception of it. He has left it in the most mysterious 
form : nor does he seem to distinguish it from Space, when he 
shadows it out by negatives of the attributes of all actual exist- 
ence. In giving an analysis of production or "becoming," 
ybidtg, he enumerates three principles as concerned in the process : 

1 Polit. p. 30. 7slr)T ad dvo rive S-eu> (ppovovvre eavrois ivavria arplcp^iv avTov. 



HIS WRITINGS AND PHILOSOPHY. 255 

1. The thing produced ; 2. That in which it is produced; 3. That 
from which the thing produced takes the pattern of its production ; 
depicting them under the analogy of "the father, the mother, 
and the offspring." * The notion of body is here represented by 
the intermediate term of the three, namely, that in which the 
production takes place. " The nurse," " the general receptacle," 
and " the laboratory," or " mould " in which a figure is cast, — 
IxpaysTov, are also expressions by which he endeavours to 
characterize it ; as being in its own nature incapable of being 
presented to the senses or the intellect. " As a person," he 
says, " observing a perpetual succession of figures moulded of 
gold, if asked during the process what was moulded, could only 
safely answer, that it was gold ;" 2 so we must be content to speak 
of this nature, calling it only a receptacle of forms or species, 
and not attributing it to any particular species whatever. The 
tendency of this theory of Body is obviously to remove all 
material phenomena from the class of real existences. And it 
seems to point to the origin of Plato's Ideal theory in some older 
philosophy avowedly idealistic. At any rate, the speculation 
concerning body, as it stands in his system, leaves a hiatus in 
the transition from the world of Ideas to that of material 
existence. 

The doctrine of Soul, as delivered by Plato, is properly the 
connecting link between the worlds of " Being " and Sensation. 
Hence is derived the importance of the theory of the Immor- 
tality of the soul in his philosophy. For it is in the soul that 
the eternal and immutable is found in the presence of the 
incipient and evanescent, — the intellectual idea in contact, so to 
say, with the phenomena of sense. The soul partakes of change, 
as it is connected with the bodily nature : it is eternal and 
-unchangeable, as it is the seat of intelligence. 

Soul, then, according to Plato, is the necessary condition for 
the development of intelligence in the Universe, as Body is for 
the existence of sensation. Soul, therefore, was necessarily prior 
to Body, as the first condition in order to the constitution of the 

1 Timceus, pp. 342-344. 2 Ibid., p. 344. 



256 PLATO. 

Universe. It was the animating principle by means of which 
the Deity, when he brought the world out of the disorder and 
confusion of unreason, communicated intelligence to it, fashion- 
ing it after the pattern of the eternal Ideas. And not only is the 
whole Universe thus ensouled by the immediate agency of the 
Deity ; but every particular system in it, in which any degree 
of intelligence is found united with body, has, in the very gift of 
that intelligence, a soul originally imparted to it by the Father 
of the Universe himself. 

This is the ultimate account of that Immortality which Plato 
attributes to the soul of man. It is not as a human soul that it 
is immortal; but it derives an eternal existence from its being 
among the original intelligent units of the animated Universe. 
We see indeed a constant production of living things in the 
world ; but it is not, as they have " Being," that they are thus 
'produced or generated or become. This is the result of that 
" diverse " nature which was blended in their original composi- 
tion with their higher principles, — with the principles, forsooth, 
of " sameness " and " being." 

For these are the three principles into which Plato analyzes 
Soul, — the principles of the same and the diverse, and being; 1 
and by these he explains the phenomena of its actual existence. 
]STo time can be assigned, then, to the origin of that which by its 
nature is, and is the SAME essentially. ~No one soul, therefore, 
can now begin to exist. And again, whatever once exists can 
never cease to exist, unless there is anything capable of destroy- 
ing its principles of Sameness and Being. But Death, as he 
shews, has no such power. It may disengage the soul from its 
present body by dissolving the body; but it cannot affect the 
essential vitality which is in the soul. This essential vitality 
is the direct contrary to death. It therefore recedes when death 
comes, according to that law of Contraries, which holds through- 
out the world of Generation and Corruption, and which is the 
agent in all changes. But it still lives as vigorously as ever, 
and returns to animate another body in the course of Genera- 

1 Timcvus, p. 344. 



HIS WRITINGS AND PHILOSOPHY. 257 

tion. 1 Nor, for the same reason, can it maintain an unvaried 
perpetuity of existence. It remains ever undestroyed ; but from 
that "diverse" principle which enters into its composition, it 
both alters in its internal character, and only imperfectly imitates 
the Eternal Nature by a successive re-appearance in the forms 
of new bodies. 2 Thus, whilst it returns to the sensible world, 
it migrates from the male to the female sex, or to forms of the 
lower animals, according to that condition of purity in which it 
departed from its last body, or its previous degree of intellectual 
cultivation. For, as we may observe, there is no original dis- 
tinction, according to the theory, between the soul of one man 
and another, and the soul of man and brute. All are equal 
in intelligence and goodness, as the immediate work of the 
Divine Author.* The varieties in the characters of souls arise 
from the operation of the inferior deities who framed the bodies 
of men and brutes, and the use which individuals may make of 
their circumstances in the world. Whilst the number of souls, 
then, remains the same, they are continually changing their 
habitations, and passing by death from one body to another 
in the different forms of animal life; undergoing degradation 
with the forms of inferior animals, or elevation with those of 
superior nature, according to their state of improvement, or 
deterioration, in a former existence. 3 

The theory of the Immortality of the soul thus rests entirely 
on the Theory of Ideas. It is the universality, and being, and 
truth, and perfection of the Ideas which prove the soul to be 
eternal. 4 Ideas are found existing in the mind ; but their 
acquisition cannot be traced to any particular period of a man's 
present life. They have been there from time immemorial ; 
for no one can say when they first appeared in his own mind. 
They were therefore born with us ; and if so, they must have 
had existence before our birth: and who can limit that existence? 



1 Leg. x. p. 106. 'AvuXe^pov be dv 8 Timceus, p. 433 ; Fhcedo, ad fin. 
yevSfieuov, dXX' ovk ai&vLov. 4 3Ieno, p. 361 Ovtcovv, el del r\ d\y\- 

S-eta rjixiv t&v 6vto)v earlv ev rrj ^vxfj, 

2 Phcedo ; Meno. d^dvaros hv rj \pvxh eirj. 

S 



258 PLATO. 

They have existed, for ought we know to the contrary, from all 
eternity : and who, then, shall limit their existence by any 
future period ? why may they not be born with us in a life sub- 
sequent to the present, as they were born with us in the present 
life, and so on to all eternity in endless generations ? This is 
in substance the train of reasoning by which Plato seeks to 
establish the immortality of the soul. A similar argument has 
been reproduced in modern metaphysical treatises, variously 
modified and stated, but the same in substance. How little 
calculated it is to produce practical conviction, whilst we admire 
its ingenuity, is evidenced by Cicero's confession, that whilst he 
wept over the Phcedo, his mind retained no deep impressions 
from the argument. 1 

This brings us to the consideration of Plato's ethical system, 
in its vital connection with his physical and metaphysical 
doctrines. 

The two great principles on which his ethical system 
reposes, are; 1st, that no one is willingly evil; 2 2d, that every 
one has in his own will a power of inducing changes in his 
character. 3 

These principles are only the counterpart ethical expres- 
sions of his theories of immutable Being, on the one hand, 
and of the world of phenomena, or mere Becoming, on the 
other. 

For the soul of man, so far as it has any good or truth in it, 
is framed after the pattern of the eternal Ideas of the Good and 
True. These Ideas, under the various moral aspects which they 
present, constitute its moral nature. All its desires, therefore, 
naturally tend to the Good and True. These qualities are what 
the soul would be. They are the mysterious realities to which 
it is striving to attain, in all those various efforts after Pleasure 
which it makes in the present life ; — unconscious it may be, as 
it is in fact in the depraved, of the true nature of the objects to 
which its affections ultimately point. Still, if it be conceded 

1 Cicero, Tusc. Qu. i. 11. s Leg., x. ; Ibid. v. p. 212 ; Ibid. ix. 

2 Timceus, 218; Leg. ix. p. 17; Phileb. p. 231. 



HIS WRITINGS AND PHILOSOPHY. 259 

that Ideas are the only proper Beings, and that everything 
else is phenomenal, or the product and offspring of the gene- 
rating power of the eternal Ideas, it must also be admitted, that 
nothing else can be the real source of moral phenomena but the 
Good and True. In the moral, no less than in the physical 
world, a constant succession of passing events is found to take 
place. We perceive a variety of affections in the nature of man 
as he is in the world, directed to a variety of objects, each 
aiming at some particular gratification; one desire and its grati- 
fication passing away, and others succeeding it in endless flow. 
All this restless course, then, of moral events exhibited in the 
life of man is phenomenal; not in the sense of its having no 
reality whatever, but of its having no permanent reality — of its 
being no more in the result than effort towards being — restless, 
endless effort towards that which may give rest and full satisfac- 
tion, and stable being. 

This ultimate object, then, however indistinctly sought, is 
the aim of every individual soul of man. Some, indeed, avowedly 
make mere sensual gratification the end of their desires. They 
endeavour to satisfy themselves with the limited and the 
evanescent. But the true cause of all that perverted activity 
which they display, is the Good itself. They know not what 
the Good is ; but they love it in spite of themselves, and bear 
evidence, by their life of unceasing pursuit, that they are secretly 
actuated by the desire of it, — and that they can find no rest in 
anything short of it. Their soul, originally formed in the like- 
ness of the Deity, can never willingly be separated from its 
Divine image. In the midst of its wildest aberrations, it feels 
the attraction of like to like, impelling, and, at the same time, 
reclaiming it to right. 

This accordingly is Plato's meaning in the principle, which 
he so emphatically lays down, that " no one is willingly evil." 
It is very different, we may observe, from saying that no one 
commits evil willingly. And Plato himself takes care to guard 
his theory from this misconstruction. He readily grants, that 
acts of wrong are distinguished by being voluntary and involun- 



260 PLATO. 

tary, without which there could be neither merit nor demerit ; 
but he strenuously maintains that this distinction does not 
apply to evil itself. It is in all cases involuntary. No one 
can choose it in itself. It is necessarily the object of aversion, 
as the good is invariably the object of choice and pursuit. 

How is it, then, it will be inquired, that men do become 
evil ; — that whilst they are really seeking to be conformed 
to a divine pattern, they practically do what is evil, and, losing 
more and more of their likeness to the Eternal Being, conform 
themselves rather to the fleeting character of the world of 
sensation ? 

The explanation is found in the other great principle of 
Plato's philosophy, the theory of Becoming, to which we have 
referred. Change is the characteristic of all that belongs to this 
subject ; as immutability is the characteristic of Being. The 
cause itself of successive phenomena may be varied by impres- 
sions from circumstances. In the soul there is a principle of 
change in the power of regulating the desires, — in indulging 
them to excess, or moderating them, according to the will. And 
the circumstances in which the soul is placed, as connected with 
the sensible world by means of the body, present the occasion 
for such change. The humours and distempers of the body 
produce discomposure in the soul. It becomes diseased analo- 
gously to the body. This state of disease is what is commonly 
called folly, dvo/a; and it takes the form either of madness, 
vavj'ct, or of mere ignorance, dfia^la. Where even ignorance only 
is the result, the internal harmony of the soul is disturbed. 
Pleasures and pains are unduly magnified ; the democracy of the 
passions prevails ; and the ascendency of reason is cast down. 
In addition to these disturbances or ailments through the body, 
come the influences of evil governments, evil public lessons, evil 
education. Hence the soul is changed from what it was when 
it first came from the hands of its Divine Author. The eternal 
Ideas after which it was framed are not effaced from it. This 
cannot be ; for then it would cease to have being ; but it 
loses distinct apprehension of them, — mistakes appearances of 



HIS WRITINGS AND PHILOSOPHY. 261 

good for good itself, — and under that delusion willingly does 
evil, and presumes on obtaining happiness by a course of evil 
conduct. 

But the same principle of change in the soul gives an 
opening also for its moral restoration. As the soul is deterio- 
rated by the contagion of the body, so it may also be restored to 
a sound state by remedial treatment. The yielding to every 
passing desire, and suffering the desires to grow out of propor- 
tion, and destroy the harmony of the soul, is the cause of men's 
falling into that blindness which hides the good from their 
mental eye. By restraining then, and moderating the desires, 
the internal disorder is gradually corrected ; reason resumes its 
ascendency; the soul once more "sees and hears aright," and 
thus returns to that good to which its desires naturally tend. Tt 
is a long process, indeed, by which the restoration is effected ; 
a process of gradual purification, xdSugag, of the soul, by 
chastisement and suffering. Nor is it accordingly completed 
in a single life ; many courses of existence must be passed 
through. Not only is the present life of the soul a consequence 
of its conduct in a former one ; but it is destined to many suc- 
cessive stages of existence, each adapted to the character acquired 
at the stage next preceding, until its defilements are purged 
away. 

These ethical doctrines of the philosopher, when divested of 
the extravagance of his theory, so far accord with the truth both 
of inspiration and experience, as they indicate, that the utmost 
man can do in the present life is insufficient to restore in him the 
lost image of God. Whilst they lay down this truth under the 
disguise of the remedial process of the transmigration of the soul, 
they further agree with the inspired authority, and with experi- 
ence, in imposing on man the duty of commencing the process of 
restoration, and in holding him strictly responsible for the state 
of his mind and affections, through that power of self-direction 
and capacity of improvement by discipline, with which he has 
been endued. Thus does he also bear evidence both to the fact 
of the perfection of man at his creation, and that of his existing 



262 PLATO. 

corruption. But he differs from the Scripture-account of that 
corruption, in making it originally a physical rather than a 
moral debasement, and representing it as taking place by a 
gradual process, and not by a sudden and entire fall, the effect 
of a first transgression of a positive divine command. 

The Sophists, indeed, boasted of their power of transforming 
the characters of men, and accordingly made great profession of 
"teaching virtue/' 1 But they coupled with this pretension, the 
admission, that all opinions on moral, no less than on other 
subjects, are equally true. All opinions in morals, they said, 
are true ; " but all are not good. What we would effect, there- 
fore, is to lead men to such opinions as we know also to be 
both good and wise/' 2 But this was a mere evasion; for if all 
opinions are equally true, then must also each man's view of 
good be true, as well as that which his instructor would incul- 
cate on him ; and there is no fixed standard to which he may be 
conformed. Plato's theory of good, as the sole object of desire, — 
or the invariable tendency of the will to good, and its invariable 
aversion from evil, — was a strong ground of opposition to the 
sophistical doctrine. It pointed out that there was a principle 
in man superior to instruction, and independent of the accidents 
of worldly circumstances, the &so; ^'ergov, the " God-measure," the 
fixed Divine standard, to which all moral teaching should be 
directed, and from a reference to which all moral discipline 
obtained its value. 

From this mode of enunciating the fundamental principles 
of morals, it followed, that the practical morality which Plato 
teaches, should be directed to the means of removing the false 
appearances of good by which the mind is deluded to evil. He 
shews, accordingly, that there are false pleasures as well as false 
opinions — that men's ignorance extends, not only to mistakes in 
regard to their wealth or bodily accomplishments, but as to their 
moral characters; for that most men think themselves better 

1 Gorgias, however, appears to have tending to teach virtue. He professed 
been an exception in this respect. He only the art of words. 
laughed at the other .Sophists for pre 2 Pruluxj. 



HIS WRITINGS AND PHILOSOPHY. 263 

than they really are. 1 Thus does he apply to morals more 
particularly, the general confession which his philosophy exacts 
of its disciple on all subjects, that he knows not what he pre- 
sumed he knew, and sends every one to learn himself, in order 
that he may be truly a moral man. 2 

This, therefore, according to Plato, is the great purpose for 
which Philosophy must be cultivated. Philosophy alone can 
open the eyes to see the true value of things, and alone elevate 
the mind from the evanescent region of the phenomenal world 
to the seat of true and eternal Being. 

For the same reason Dialectic, as immediately conversant 
about the Ideas of the Good and the True, is the ultimate study 
of him that would seek to educate and improve the powers of 
his soul to the utmost. 

Philosophy, and religion, and morality, in fact, in his system, 
perfectly coincide. The love of Truth is also the love of Good, 
and the love of Good is the love of Truth, 3 and the Chief Good 
and the Truth itself are the Deity. The process by which the 
good man is effected, philosophically viewed, is the exercise of a 
power of analysing pleasure and pains; an art of mensuration, 
as it were, — enabling the mind to discriminate between Truth 
and Good on the one hand, and their semblances on the other, 
and distinctly to apprehend them, under whatever disguise they 
may be presented and obscured by the senses ; just as we learn, 
by measuring, the real magnitude of objects, which, estimated 
by the sight, appear to us larger or smaller according to their 
distance from the eye. 4 Morally viewed, the dominant notion of 
his system is, the one motive of the love of Truth and Good pre- 
vailing over, and purifying, and absorbing into itself, every 
desire of Human nature. 5 In the first view, it is Wisdom or 



1 Philebus, p. 285. IloXt) 8e TrXeTvrol 3 Ibid. p. 305. Mtjt' ets rivas u>0e- 

76, ot/xai, irepl rb rphov eldos h reus Xei'as iTnaT^fxwv fiXeipavres, p.r\rt rivets 

^I'Xats tovtwv 5i7)/jiapT7)KacriJ> dpeTrjs, evdoKtp-ias, o\V efris irecpvue tt}$ i/^x^s 

5o£d£ovT€$ (3e\rLovs iavrovs, ovk oVres. r]p.Cjv Svvapus epau re rev aXrfbovs, ical 

TrdvTCL eveKa tovtov TrpdrreiP. 

- Ibid. p. 284. To yuQdi aavrbv, Xe"- 4 Polit. ; Protag. 

7eis, cD ^uKpares, k. t. X. 5 Sympos. p. 247, et seq. 



264 PLATO. 

Philosophy ; in the latter, it is Purification, — and perfect Virtue, 
— a discipline of Immortality, — resemblance and participation 
of the Deity. 1 We find in him, what appears the most received 
and ancient division of Virtue into the four Cardinal Vir- 
tues, as they are termed, of Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, 
and Temperance, but no particular discussion, as in Aristotle, 
of the characteristics of each. In his view in fact, Tempe- 
rance, or more correctly to render the Greek expression, 
2w<pcoawr,, "sober-mindedness," or that state of mind in which 
reason maintains its supremacy over the passions, is the domi- 
nant principle of all moral conduct. The restraining and 
subduing of the appetites and desires, become the one great 
moral aim in a system of morals, which has the purification of 
the soul from all bodily contagion as its end of pursuit. 

These views of moral truth are in themselves certainly grand 
and ennobling. As guides, however, to duty, they are deficient 
in that particularity and homeliness of application which are 
required for the real business of morality. The tendency of 
Plato's ethical disquisitions to contemplative mysticism is 
obvious, left as they are by Plato in undefined outline, and 
adorned with the graces and charms of his imaginative eloquence. 
Nor shall we wonder that they have easily combined with the 
feeling of asceticism, so congenial to the human heart. The 
contempt which they throw over everything belonging to the 
bodily nature of man, — 'the delusiveness imputed to the senses, 
without any limitation of it, or guard against abuse of the 
theory, — and the abstractedness from the world which they 
propose, — admit of being construed into a theory of absolute 
suicidal mortification of the body, and of the purifying effi- 
cacy of self-inflicted punishments. These tendencies, indeed, 
of Plato's ethical doctrines, were, not long after his time, ex- 
emplified in the apathy and austerity of the Stoic morality. 
And it is well known to what extent they have been deve- 

1 Thecetet. p. 121. Aid /ecu Treipda^at bp-oloxjis de, 81kcuov ko.1 tiaiov p-tra (ppo- 
XPV ev'&evde e/ceiVe fauyeiv qtltixx^tq.' vr/crews yevea'&ai, k. t. X. 
0i/y77 5£, b/jLOicoats S-ei<3 /caret to dvvarbv 



HIS WRITINGS AND PHILOSOPHY. 265 

loped in the teaching and practice of religionists of all creeds. 
It cannot be denied, also, that where they take hold of a mor- 
bid and susceptible temperament of mind, they tend to sub- 
stitute, in such a case, the morality of imagination and senti- 
ment for that of common sense and household feeling, and to 
fritter away the convictions of duty into mere proprieties of taste ; 
so that, even whilst they elevate the character above sordid and 
vulgar seductions of pleasure, they emasculate and corrupt it, 
through the very excess of its theoretical refinement. 

As bad education was regarded by Plato as the other great 
cause of human corruption, in addition to the evil influence of 
Body on the soul, he directs a large portion of his philosophical 
disquisitions to correct the evil arising from this second source. 
His ethical discussions go to the limiting of the desires, and 
curing the diseases produced by them in the soul : his political 
discussions have for their proper object, the laying down right 
principles of education, and enforcing them by the constitution, 
laws, and power of the state. 1 His two great works, the most 
elaborate of his writings, the Dialogues of the Republic, and the 
Laws, are, accordingly, rather theories of Education, than, of 
Government and Laws, as their titles would import. 2 Both have 
in view the practical improvement of Human nature by social 
institutions expressly framed for that purpose. 

We must not, however, suppose that Plato contemplated as a 
result, the actual foundation of a state, according to the prin- 
ciples of polity and legislation laid down in these two famous 
dialogues. His object was to give an example of the most 
perfect life, free from those impediments which all existing 
governments and laws threw across the path of the virtuous 
man. As Philosophy is the guide of private life, elevating it to 
the knowledge of the Good and the True, so he would have 
Philosophy also seated on the throne of Government, and 
exhibit the eternal Ideas of Good and Truth, modifying society 

1 Leg., vii. p. 354. tI } kclI riva dvpap^p e%ei" dia "yap Tavrrjs 

(pa/nh iriov elvou top irpoKex^pi-crp-^vov h 

2 Ibid. i. p. 41. Hp&Tov 8i] obv irpbs t<£ pvp Xoyop v<p' tjuQp, p.exP L 7r€ P & v "^P * 
top \6yop, bpiaupz'&a iratdeiap t'l tot' ia- top ^cop acpiK-qTCU. 



266 PLATO. 

after their pattern, whether it were in the frame of the Govern- 
ment, or in the particular institutions and enactments of the 
state. All is made to tend, both in the Republic and in the 
Laws, to the one great object of Plato's mind, the sketching of 
the Idea of the Good as a social principle, apart from the evil 
influences of existing society. 

We may imagine him then, in the composition of these two 
works, especially in that of the Republic as the leading one, 
addressing himself to the task of expressing the Ideas of the 
perfect polity. Observe him, according to his own illustration, 1 
like the painter with his tablet before him, abstracted in thought 
from everything around him, musing on the high subject, — one 
while, looking off to the Divine Ideas which he would represent, 
then again, to his tablet, as he proceeds in the work, — painting 
in this, obliterating that,— touching and retouching, — pleased, as 
anything in the execution responds to his effort, — distressed as 
any effect disappoints his eager expectation ; and so throughout, 
anxiously labouring to delineate, with such faithfulness as may 
be attained by means of the forms and colours of this lower world, 
objects, whose seat is in the region of ethereal light, and visible 
only to the gifted eye, which has had its vision purified and 
strengthened by Philosophy ! 

How shall he effectually accomplish the arduous task ? Is 
it to be wondered at, that, dazzled by the splendour of the objects, 
he should have failed to realize them in his picture, or should 
have even erred in some way in his conception of them, and 
incurred censure by extravagances and conceits? We are forced 
to admit, that there are such blemishes in his execution of his 
great work ; that he aims at an impossible unity in his scheme ; 
that, lost in admiration of the beauty and perfection of the 
Divine Ideas themselves, he seeks to impress them at his will 
on the forms of things in the world; and thus, altogether over- 
looks distinctions deeply founded in the nature of man, and 
tramples on some of the tenderest and most sacred feelings of 

1 Re}), vi. p. 104. AaSovres, 9)iv 5' eyu, ticnrep irLvaxa. k. t. X. Also Leg. 
vi. p. 285. #10-0' otl Kcfedirep faypdcpwv ovdtv wtpas ^X €CV V TpayixaTeia doKet k. t. X. 



HIS WRITINGS AND PHILOSOPHY. 267 

the human heart ? Such is the great fault of his supposed com- 
munity of wives and children ; his disregard of the characteristic 
proprieties of the sexes, imposing on women the exercises of the 
gymnasium, not caring to extinguish in them the feeling of 
modesty ; denying them the nursing and training of their 
children ; prohibiting throughout the possession of private pro- 
perty, and carrying that notion so far, as to insist, that " the very 
notion of what is called one's own, should by all means, from 
every quarter, be wholly exterminated out of human life, — that 
it is best, where it is contrived, as far as possible, that even 
things that are by nature one's own, should, somehow, become 
common; eyes, and ears, and hands, should seem to see, and 
hear, and act, in common — all persons to praise and blame in 
one way — all rejoicing and grieving at the same things." 1 

Most justly indeed, has Aristotle censured these aberrations 
of the speculative judgment of his great Master, and pointed out 
the vanity of supposing to remove the evils felt from the inequa- 
lity of the members of society, and from the absence of a common 
interest and unity of feeling, by such external arrangements; 
when the cause of the crimes committed in society lies much 
deeper, — not in any outward circumstances of life, — but in the 
depravity of men. 2 

Strongly as we must condemn these extravagances, we may 
still admire the originality and boldness of the artist, who has 
not been deterred by the objections against them, — for there can 
be no doubt, that he was fully aware that there were such grave 
objections ; — this we clearly see, in his own hesitation in ad- 
verting to the most offensive particulars. An inferior hand 
would have held itself back from such representations. It is as 
in a picture of a great master, in which some things appear to 
the eye of an ordinary critic out of place, or in themselves ridi- 
culous and absurd ; but which are seen by those conversant 



1 Leg. v. Op. 8, p. 229. Tipwrrj fxh /uLaXiara, Xtyerai de, us Svtws earl icoiva 

Tolvvv irdXts re kari koI iroXireia, K<xl to, <piXcw' tovt odv e'ire irov vvv 'iari, ei'r' 

vofioc dpuTTOi, birov rb ir&Xai Xeybjxevov &rrcu irork, k. t. X. 
hv yiyvrjrat Kara iraaav rr\v irbXw 6Vt 2 Avistot. Polit. ii. cc. 1-4. 



268 PLATO. 

with the art and the style, as perfectly consistent with the design, 
and, if faulty, only such faults as a man of genius would com- 
mit. Thus, to Plato, describing as he does, a polity, not having 
its existence or possibility of existence on the earth, but only 
where the Divine archetypes of all that is good and true in the 
Universe have their Being — that is in the presence of the Deity 
Himself, " the King," as he styles Him, in the Heavens ; the 
concerns of this world might well seem of little importance. 
Human nature sinks into insignificance in his view. Man is 
regarded, to use his own expression, as " a sort of plaything of 
the Deity," — SsoS n icaiyvw, — having but little of truth, or reality 
in his nature, and scarcely worth any serious attention. " You 
disparage altogether the race of men," says a speaker in the 
Dialogue of The Laws : " wonder not at it," replies the Athenian ; 
but make allowance for me ; for it was from looking off to the 
Deity, and under emotion, that I expressed what I have 
now said. However, let it be granted, that our race is not 
insignificant, if you please, but worth some serious considera- 
tion." 1 Such is the spirit in which he deals throughout this 
work with human nature, as if human beings were only so many 
chessmen to be moved in a game on the board, so as to dis- 
play the admirable design of the all- disposing mind, and 
illustrate the working of the eternal Ideas. The error is in his 
philosophy itself. As in his physical speculations, so here, he 
commences from the final cause, or the notion of the Best, and 
constitutes the world of social life after that ; instead of rising 
from the study of its actual formation, to the notion of the Best, 
he supposes that he can arrive at a just view of the Divine 
pattern of the Good, by presenting a theory of it after his own 
conceptions of the Best. Having once formed his theory, he was 
not to be checked by any repulsive consequences from pushing 
it to the utmost. 

The true vindication of his Theory of the perfect Polity, is, 
after all, to be found in the fact, that he is shadowing out a 
Divine Life, rather than describing the outline of a State. It is 

Leg. vii. op. p. 353. 



HIS WRITINGS AND PHILOSOPHY. 269 

perhaps only doing justice to his design, to say, that he was 
unconsciously feeling in the dark, while the sun of Gospel- 
Truth was as yet far below the horizon, after that " Kingdom of 
God which is within us," — the citizenship of the Saints of God, — 
the voXiTuvpa, b oigavoTg, of which an Apostle speaks, — x dimly and 
confusedly as in a dream, anticipating, amidst the surrounding 
thick darkness, that period, when the things of this world shall 
have passed away ; and when there will be " neither marrying 
nor being given in marriage," but all will be " as the angels of 
God in Heaven." 

It is not then so much to remedy the evils of any existing 
condition of society, by the substitution of a better, as to educate 
men for a higher and better condition of being, that he is specu- 
lating. As the form of a state, his theoretic Eepublic may be 
most imperfect ; as such, it may be said to be utterly defective in 
neglecting the great mass of the people comprized in a state, 
and providing only for those by nature best constituted to 
profit by the institution, and to be fit examples of it ; the whole 
being directed to the forming of the minds, and character of 
the highest class, those designated the "Guards" of the city. 
Still his proceeding might be fully justified by the explanation, 
that he was not constructing a polity of this world, — he was not 
making laws for any one form of government known among men, 
but building up, and regulating, an invisible internal polity in 
the souls of men, and training them for immortality. 2 

1 Philipp. iii. 20. The notion of " a in his illustration of the character of 

polity " is not unfrequently adopted and individuals from the account of the 

applied by the Fathers of the Church different forms of government, in the 3d 

to Christianity. St. Augustine's great and 9th Books of the Republic, "IB-i drj 

work is De Civitate Dei. St. Paul also fioc £<prjv, &8e aKoirei' ttjv d/xoiorrjTa dva- 

(Phil. i. 27) uses the verb ; "Kovov actios pLipLvrjaKofJievos ttjs re 7r6Xews Kal rod av- 

rod evayye\iov rod ~Kpi<TTov 7ro\tTeuecrS-e. dpbs, ovtoj naff 1 eKaarou ev /xepei aS-pwv, tol 

It would seem that the ethical applica- ira^-rifxara e/carepou Ae'Ye. P. 250. Olc-fl' 

tion of the term was become familiar at otv fy 5' eyu, on Kal a.v'&pwTrwv etd-q rocr- 

the outset of the Gospel, from the spread aura dpdyKrj rpoirov nvd elvai, oaairep 

of the knowledge of Plato's philosophy /cat TroXtreiQu, 186. 
through the school of Alexandria. 

This notion of the similarity of the 2 Rep. ix., 281, "MaifoavW 2(pr}, ev rj 

internal condition of man to that of a vvv bL7}\^t-op.ev old^ovres irbXei. Ae-yeis, rfj 

state, runs through Plato's system ; as iv \6yois Ket/mevrj' end yrjs ye ovdap:ov 



270 PLATO. 

Thus, referring to the imperfect attempts previously made by- 
written laws, he observes, that it might be objected to his work 
as compared with these, very much as an empiric in the art of 
healing might object to the treatment of a case by the scientific 
physician, who should explain to the patient the nature of his 
disease, and trace it to its cause ; " that he was educating the sick 
man ; as if he wanted to become a physician, and not to be 
made well." 1 The objection, he admits, would be so far just, 
that he is in fact seeking to educate, in making laws for a 
people ; speculating at leisure on what might be best for 
them; not like a tyrant or despot, sternly ordaining laws with 
their penalties, and then going his way, and caring no more about 
the matter ; but after the manner of a father or mother, sensibly 
dealing with them, and making it evident that, out of affection 
for them, he was devising only what was most honourable, and 
best for them. 2 

Comparing the two Dialogues, we may say, that whilst both 
purpose to educate man according to the principle of immortality 
which is in him ; and both employ the machinery of a state in 
elaborating their respective schemes ; the Republic contemplates 
the improvement of man, as he is an individual in the world ; 
the Laws, his improvement as a member of a state, or of some 
particular community in society. The Republic, accordingly, 
might reasonably not concern itself about the great mass and 
variety of whom a state must in fact consist : whilst the Laws, 
respecting man in society, undertake to regulate the whole body 
of the citizens in their public and private life, in their civil as 
well as religious duties throughout. The Laws presuppose, and 
have reference to, the Divine Life instituted in the Republic ; inas- 
much as that is the great end to be kept in view, whatever may 



dt/xai a(iTT)v elvai. 'AW 9jv §' eyk, h 2 Leg. ix., pp. 13, 14, ovtu diavoibp.e'&a 

ovpavcp i'crws irapddeiyfia dvaKeirai r$ irepl vbp.uv deTu ypa<pr)s yiypea'&ai reus 

(3ov\o[Aii>a) bpdv, Kal bpuvri eavrbv Karoi- TrbXecnv, eu Trarpbs re Kal p,r)Tpbs axvl JLa ^ L 

KL^eiv. Aiacpepei d£ ovdev el're irov earlv f (pCkovvTWV re Kal vovv ixbvTCOv (palvea'&ai 

el're 'taraC rot, yap raijTTjs fiourjs av irpa%- ra yeypap.p:4va' t) Kara rtpavvou Kal decr- 

eiev, aKkrjs 5e ovdepuas. irbTrjv, rd^avra Kal aTreiXrjcravTa, ypd- 

1 Leg. ix. op. 9, p. 11. \pavTa iv toIxois, dTrrjWdx^-oa. 



HIS WRITINGS AND PHILOSOPHY. 271 

be the actual form of government in the state. That, it is con- 
ceded, cannot be actually represented in any human society : 
it can only exist, if anywhere, he says, where " Gods or sons of 
Gods administer it, subsisting in a life of enjoyment." Still it is 
the one pattern, the vugaduypa, to be kept ever in view : all 
that can be attempted in the world, is, to effect one like it to the 
utmost, or approximate to it as nearly as may be. And such is 
the scheme of legislation which the dialogue of the Laws seeks 
to embody in its several institutions and enactments. 1 

This dialogue is very remarkable among the works of Plato, 
as that in which Socrates altogether disappears from the scene, 
and the chief speaker and instructor throughout, is simply an 
Athenian ; whilst the others engaged in the conversation, are 
Clinias a Cretan, and Megillus a Lacedaemonian, persons appa- 
rently of no particular note, perhaps only fictitious names, 
standing as representatives of the systems of legislation to which 
they respectively belong, for the purpose of introducing the pro- 
minent points of each system into the discussion, and the obser- 
vations on them by the philosopher, as he proceeds in his sub- 
ject. It exhibits more of the character of a regular treatise on 
the matter proposed, than of the gradual, and sometimes desul- 
tory, proceeding from step to step in the argument, which charac- 
terizes the dialogues in general. The Cretan and the Lacedae- 
monian, in fact, take but little part in the conversation. They 
rather serve to give the usual form of a dialogue, than contribute 
at all materially to the discussion. 

It would seem that Plato in this particular work, touching 
immediately on the politics and history of the leading states of 
Greece, felt called upon in a manner by the nature of the dis- 
cussion to speak more in his own person, and express his opinion 
not only as a philosopher, but as a citizen of Athens. The 

1 Leg. v. op. 8, p. 230. e H aev on fidXiara TOiavTTju fareiv /card 56- 

dr) roiaijTrj woXis etre irov Qeol r) 7rcu5es vafxiv. "He 5k vvv ijfieTs eiriK.exet.pr)- 

OecDf avT7)v olkovctl irXeioves evos, ovno Kafxev, eti) re dv yevo/xepr) irus, d^-av- 

5ia£Quies ev<ppaivbp.evoi. kcltoikovcti. Aid curias eyyvrara' /cat r\ fiev Sevrepws" 

dr) irapdSeiyad ye TroXire'ias ovk dXXr/ rp'nt\v 5e Lierd ravra, edv Qebs eS-Afl, 

XPV GKOirelv dXX' exofifrovs Tavrrjs, rr\v 8iairepai>ovfJt.e%a. 



272 PLATO. 

theory of the Republic fell strictly under the general scope of his 
Philosophy. It was an exemplification of what a state ought to 
be on the principles of his Philosophy. It was therefore only 
consistent, that it should still obtain utterance under the mask 
which it had all along assumed. And Socrates, accordingly, is 
presented before us in the Republic in the usual way, as leading 
the conversation, interesting the young men with whom he is 
talking, by his questions and his lively manner, to enter more 
and more with him into the subject, and so enticing them on, 
until he unfolds to them the whole argument of the work. 

That Socrates should disappear altogether from this Dialogue 
on Laws, may be attributed partly to the scene of it. The 
conversation is supposed to take place in Crete on the occa- 
sion of a public sacrifice to be performed at the Temple of 
Jupiter near the city of Cnossus. Though Plato does not feel 
bound to observe in his Dialogues the congruities of time and 
place, the inconsistency might have seemed too palpable, had 
Socrates, who was known as a constant resident at Athens, and 
never to have left it but on one or two remarkable occasions of 
military service, been introduced into the Dialogue as a visitor 
of Crete. ISTor indeed would the subject of that Dialogue have 
been so appropriate in the mouth of Socrates, differing as it does 
from that of the Republic, in not being a speculation concerning 
the true polity, or a general question of Philosophy, but one 
relating to the internal life of a particular state, or its own 
government of itself. For in matters of this kind, Socrates 
does not appear to have actively interested himself. Whilst he 
laboured for the improvement of his fellow-citizens in their pri- 
vate life, and for their discipline of themselves, it was his prac- 
tice to keep aloof from all interference in public affairs ; and it 
would have been therefore scarcely consistent with the domestic 
character of his teaching, to have presented him, as this Dia- 
logue required, undertaking the ostensible function of the legis- 
lator. 

But though Plato no longer wears the mask of his master in 
the conduct of the Dialogue on Laivs, it is still no other than his 



HIS WRITINGS AND PHILOSOPHY. 273 

master's voice that we hear, in the person of the " Athenian/' 
delivering his lessons of wisdom to his two friends, the Cretan 
and the Lacedaemonian ; as the three walk together on their 
way to the Temple, or rest themselves awhile under the shade 
of the "tall and beautiful cypresses" of the grove through 
which they pass, on a long summer's day. We miss indeed, 
in their conversation, the quaint humour of Socrates, such as 
occasionally sparkles out in his encounters with some sophist 
of the day, whom he foils by his adroitness in the argument, 
or in his rebuke of some conceited youth whom he has sub- 
jected to the test of his searching examination. The " Athenian * 
discourses with all gravity, little interrupted by any objections 
on the part of his companions, who receive his instructions with 
a respectful deference, as coming from the citizen of a state 
holding the acknowledged pre-eminence in learning and philo- 
sophy which Athens did. But it is still essentially the same 
teaching in this Dialogue, as in the other in which -Socrates him- 
self is before us. 

But though the two Dialogues of the Republic and the Laws 
are in themselves distinct, we may justly regard them as parts 
of one great design in the mind of the author ; the former 
shadowing out a theory of the education of the soul in the out- 
line of an imaginary polity, in which Beason is educated to its 
high function as the guarding and directing power of the soul ; 
the latter setting forth a scheme of discipline, by which the 
inferior principles of the soul may be trained to a due subordi- 
nation and obedience to the master-principle of Beason. 

The great antagonist with which Bhilosophy had to contend 
in the education of the people in Greece was the Theatre. When 
we read those wonderful compositions of the Greek dramatic 
muse, which have remained to our times, with so much delight, 
notwithstanding our imperfect appreciation of the force and 
beauty of the language, and in the absence of the choral melody 
and rhythm, which charmed the ear in the exhibition of them, — 
we may, in some measure conceive with what enthusiasm they 
must have inspired the imaginations of the people themselves 

T 



274 PLATO. 

who beheld and heard them. It was by them in fact that the 
poets became masters of the thought and feeling throughout 
Greece, and the successors to that influence which Homer alone 
originally possessed. 

It would have been well if that powerful influence had been 
simply exerted for the instruction of the people in truth and 
right, instead of being itself perverted and rendered instrumental 
for evil, by following the leading of those passions and humours 
among the people which it should have guided. In the time of 
Plato the dramatic muse had descended from its high ground to 
become the mere echo of the voice of a lawless theatre. There 
was no longer, as he says, an " aristocracy — a rule of the best — in 
its music ; " but a mischievous " theatrocracy " had succeeded. 
Once the theatres had been mute ; but now all was clamour and 
uproar, — every one was presuming to judge what was right or 
wrong in the choral song and dance of the drama ; and from 
the popular conceit in this particular, a general presumption of 
wisdom had arisen, and license had followed along with it. 1 

Such is the ground of his indignation against the poets, and 
against the tragedians in particular. The writers of comedy he 
does not seem to consider so dangerous to the morals of a state : 
with respect to them he chiefly cautions against the effect of 
indulgence of pleasure in the ludicrous, lest one should unawares 
acquire a habit of comic humour in the intercourse of life, 2 and 
so turn the private citizen into the comedian. 

It is not that he objects to poetry, as it is the work of genius. 
No one is more alive to its impressions than himself. None but 
one, into whose soul the spirit of poetry had deeply penetrated, 
could have composed such writings as his. Towards Homer, in 
particular, so strong are his aspirations of love and respect from 
childhood, that it costs him a struggle with his feelings to en- 
force the stern verdict of his philosophy against one so cherished 
in his affections. 3 But he fears the corruption of the principles 

1 Leg. iii. p. 155. 2 Rep. x. p. 306. koXCjv airavTwv toijtcop tQv rpayiKGv 

8 Hep. x. p. 283. Kalroi <pi\la y£ tLs irpQiTOS diddaKaXos re Kai ijyefiuiv yevea- 

fie Kal aldws eK -rraidbs ^ofcra irepl 'Op,rj- %-ai. 'AW ov yap irpb ye rrjs aXydetas 

pov airoKtSKtiei 'ke'ya.v. '4otKe p*kv yap tQv TLp.rjre'os dvfjp. 



HIS WRITINGS AND PHILOSOPHY. 275 

of the young from the false teaching which may be insinuated 
into their minds by the charm of the poetic imitation. He 
instances, particularly in Homer, his attributing vicious and 
weak conduct to the gods and the heroes, — his describing the 
Deity as the author of evil no less than of good, — his exaggera- 
tion of the terrors of the unseen world, tending to excite 
undue fear of death. Whilst he fully owns then the charm 
of Homer's poems, and would honour him as the sacred 
minister of the muses, "pouring the ointment on his head 
and crowning him with the fillet," it is only as the parting tri- 
bute of admiration and homage due to a poet so admirable and 
delightful. 1 Again, in his Laws we find the like judgment 
expressed against the poets of Tragedy in particular. He there 
warns the citizens of his new state, that they must regard these 
poets in the light of competitors with them in a dramatic contest 
for the prize ; for that " they also were poets themselves ; inas- 
much as their whole polity consisted of a representation of the 
noblest and best life, which was the truest tragedy/' 2 Should 
such visitors then come to their city, and ask permission to exhibit 
their dramas there, they must be required to submit their com- 
positions to the magistrates, and only in the event of the decision 
being, that the same things which were proper to be said were 
better expressed by these than by themselves, should the chorus 
be granted to them ; thus imposing a condition on the strangers, 
their supposed competitors, which would virtually be a prohibi- 
tion and exclusion of them. 3 

But these censures of Plato do not exhaust the burthen of 
his objection to the poets. The real question at issue with 
him is one between the truth and the semblance of the truth. 
As in his view the Divine Eternal Ideas are the only real exis- 
tences in the Universe, and every thing else possesses being and 
truth, secondarily, or only as it participates of these, it must 
follow, that all the productions of imitative art, such as those of 

1 Bep. iii. 285. kTTOTrip.Troip.ev re b\v iroktrela ivvkarr\Ke /jll/jltjctis tou kclWlo-tov 
els aWrjv irokiv, fxvpov Kara ttjs Ke<pa\5)s /cat dpiarov fiiov, 8 drj <pap.ev i]p.e?s ye 
Karax^opres, Kal ep'up arixf/avres. 6vtcos eimi Tpaycpdiav ttjv dXrjdeaTdTrjv. 

2 Leg. vii. 817. IT Sera odv rjpuv r) 3 Ibid. 



276 PLATO. 

Poetry, Painting, Music, as representing only the impressions 
received in the mind from the objects of its contemplation, can- 
not be regarded as having any substantial truth in them. Thus, 
according to Plato, there are three gradations in the order of 
truth. The first is from the Divine Ideas to the works of Nature, 
the immediate operations of the Divine Artificer constituting the 
various species of all existing things. Such are, then, the first 
and nearest approximation to the truth of the Divine Ideas 
themselves. The next is to the works of the Human Artificer 
executing some production of art according to the idea mani- 
fested in a given object, and thus producing another object of 
the same species ; as when the carpenter makes couches or 
tables after the general idea of either of those objects. The car- 
penter does not make the species, but an individual of the 
species ; and therefore approximates to the truth only in the 
second degree. Thirdly and lastly are the productions of the 
imitator ; not, in fact, real productions of any thing, such as are 
those of the carpenter who makes a couch or table ; but only ap- 
pearances, idols, or phantasms, as Plato describes them. Conse- 
quently all such productions are far removed from the truth. 1 
These have no more of truth in them, as he observes, than the 
images in a mirror have, as it is turned in every direction and 
reflects each object in succession. 2 This is the ultimate ground 
of Plato's contempt for the poetic imitations, and rejection of the 
poet from his imaginary republic, and from the state for which he 
legislates. He would not have u pleasure and pain reign," as he 
says, in his city, instead of law and reason. He would not have 
the sympathies of his people excited by the mimic occasions 
presented in the scenes and the music of the drama ; and their 
power of self-command — the polity within them, in their own 

1 Hep. x. p. 597. BovXet oZv, e'cprjv, -r) yap ; "Ecttw. TJuypdcp'os drj, kXiwrroibs, 

eir airQv toijtcov fyrrjo-ufxev rbv p.ip,v]Tr\v Qebs, rpeis ovtol eTnardrat. rpialp etoecri 

toijtov, ris iarip ; Et (3ou\ei, g<p7j. Ovkovv k\i.vG>i>. 

rpcrrai rives kXivcli adrai ylyvovrai ; pia 2 Ibid. p. 596. rci%£crra 5^ irov, el 

p.ev, i) ev rfj (p6aei odaa, ty (pa.1p.ev av, 6£kei<s \aSibv Karoirrpov irepi(f>ipeiv irav- 

(bs £yu)p.ai., Qebv epydaaa'baL, ?) riva raxfj, rax^J P-ev rfkiov Troirjcreis Kal to. ev 

&\\ov; Ovteva, 6tp.ai. Mia 84 ye, ty 6 t$ ovpavy, ra%i> Be yrjv, raxv Se aavrbv 

rttCTtav. Nal, tyy Mia de?)v b faypdepor re Kal rSXXa &a, k. t. \. 



HIS WRITINGS AND PHILOSOPHY. 277 

souls — impaired, or perhaps destroyed, by such indulgence. " For 
great is the contest," he says, in summing up his observations on 
this head, — " great beyond what it appears, — for one to become 
good or evil ; so that it is not worth one's while, by inducements 
of honour, or wealth, or power, nor even by poetry, to neglect 
justice and the rest of virtue." 1 

That government only which most resembles a Theocracy is, 
in Plato's view, a true polity. All others, popularly termed go- 
vernments, as democracy, oligarchy, aristocracy, monarchy, are 
merely settlements of cities, and not Polities ; 2 being called after 
that power which has the ascendancy in each over the other parts 
of the state. So far as a state is truly such, it ought to be named, 
he says, after the true God, the Lord over all intelligent beings. 
Governments, as they exist, are only the results of the struggles 
of contending factions : whence we find, as he observes, one 
party in the ascendancy excluding and depressing another, in 
order to its own maintenance, and no concern taken for the welfare 
of the whole community. To remedy this general evil of exist- 
ing governments, he would have the simple and straightforward 
course of the divine procedure brought before the minds of men, 
and a conformity with that procedure inculcated on them as the 
only rule of life and happiness. " God," he teaches, in an ani- 
mated and noble passage, 3 " as the ancient story also is, holding the 
beginning, and end, and middle of all things existing, describes 
a straight line, according to Nature, walking about. 4 In his 
train ever follows Justice, the avenger of those that are left 
behind by the Divine law ; to which, he that would be happy, 
keeping close, follows in the train, humble and orderly ; but 
whoever is puffed up with high boasting, or elated with wealth, 
or honours, or grace of person, together with youthfulness and 
folly,— -his soul burning with insolence, as presuming, that he 
requires neither ruler nor any guide, but is competent even to 

1 Rep. x. p. 310. 2 Leg. iv. 178. 4 Leg. iv. p. 185. '0 /xh 5t? Qebs, 

3 Xpijv 5' etirep rod toio6tov ttjv irbXtv (beirep nod 6 Trakaibs \6yos, dpxw T€ Ka ^ 

2§€i i'rrovop.dfea'&aL, rb tov dX^B-oOs rod TeXevrrjP Kal p.taa tQv 8vtcov airavroiv 

twp vovv exbvTWV deaird'fovTos S-eoO 6vopa ^xw, ev'&e'iav irepalvei Kara (pticnv irepmo- 

\eyea^ai. (Ibid. p. 713.) pevdfievos. 



278 PLATO. 

be a guide to others, — is left, forsaken by God. And being left, 
and taking to himself others besides, such as he is, he frolics, 
throwing everything into promiscuous confusion. And to many 
he seems to be some one ; but, after no long time, undergoing a 
retribution, of which he cannot complain, to Justice, he utterly 
subverts himself, and his house, and his city." 1 

Here we have emphatically recognized the great truth, that 
the foundations of all Government and Law are laid in the 
unchanging nature of the Divine Being. The law of right, as 
exemplified in the dominion of party, is the law of the strongest, 
fluctuating with the accidents of power, and never attaining to 
any permanent being. Such was the law of right, as taught 
from city to city, by the Sophists, and which was fully esta- 
blished in public opinion throughout Greece, — not only as 
manifested in the factious character of the particular govern- 
ments, but avowedly declared and acted on as a principle of 
conduct. In " the matter of good-will, as concerns the Deity," 
say Athenian ambassadors, in reply to an expression of con- 
fidence on the part of those whom they were assailing, in the 
Divine support of the justice of their cause, — " neither do we 
conceive that we shall fail of that support ; for it is nothing out 
of the course of the established opinion of men concerning the 
Divine Being, or their sentiments concerning themselves, that we 
are expecting or doing. For we hold that the Divine nature, so 
far as we can judge of it, and Human nature, as we see clearly, by 
an instinctive necessity, ever exercise power w T here they can ob- 
tain the mastery. Nor are we the first, either to propose the law, 
or to use it when laid down : it was in being when we took it up ; 
and it will subsist for ever, for us to transmit to others after us ; 
and we merely act upon it; convinced, that yourselves, no less 
than others, were you placed in the same power in which we are, 
would do so." 2 Here, then, is the law which belongs to the 
region of instability, — to that nature which is ever becoming, and 

1 Leg. vii. p. 353. 
2 Thucyd. v. 105. Trjs fih rolvvv irelas, t&v fikv es to ^e?ov vo/Aiaem, rCov 
Trpbs to ^-e?ov evfxeueias oi)5' i]fj.€?s ol 6/j.e^a 5' is acpas civtovs f$ovhrio~ews, diKatodfieu 
XeXei^eadai. Ovdh yap ££o> ttjs av^pw- tj irpdaaopLev. k. t. X. 



HIS WRITINGS AND PHILOSOPHY. 279 

never is. Contrast with, this Plato's principle, which declnces 
the origin of law from the eternal idea of good, and it will then 
be more distinctly seen what the spirit of Plato's legislation 
really is. 

It follows, indeed, from his principle, that all instituted law 
is imperfect. 1 And he admits, accordingly, that if a perfectly 
virtuous ruler could be established on earth, it would be best 
that the business of government should be carried on by his sole 
will ; which, would in such a case be only the copy of the 
Divine exemplar of right. But as this is past hope in the present 
condition of human things, the substitute for the more perfect 
system is the institution of laws framed after the eternal Idea of 
Good ; not laws adapted merely to the preservation of a parti- 
cular form of polity, but embodying in them the immutable 
principles of right. And even such laws, as being matters of 
institution, are inferior in dignity to unwritten laws — the princi- 
ples of right — which, themselves resting on no external sanction, 
are yet the conserving principles of all positive laws. 

Having his eye fixed on the eternal pattern of the Good and 
the True, Plato looked with a feeling of disappointment and 
disgust at the several forms of polity which the States of Greece 
exhibited. He is generally thought to have inclined to a pre- 
ference of aristocracy, and to have regarded with aversion all 
popular government. But though it is probable, that, from what 
he saw of the tyranny of an unrestrained democracy, he sighed in 
secret for a better order of things, we cannot conclude from his 
political speculations that he regarded any single existing polity 
as the best. He, in fact, condemns all particular forms; 2 and 
when he asserts a preference, it is for a polity such as was 
nowhere seen in his times, combining in it monarchy, aristocracy, 
and democracy. 3 But in his view, as governments then existed, 
they were all one-sided ; the dominion of one part of a commu- 
nity over the rest, and not the dominion of Good over the whole. 

1 "On vdfios ovk av irore bvvaiTO t6 re aav avrfj rlva tCov vvv \tyeis TrdXiTeiuv ; 

(ipLVTOV /Cat TO dtKatOTCtTOV, K. T. X. OV 8' TjVTLVCLOVV, eCTTOV, k. t. X. 

(Polit. p. 82.) 

2 Hep. vi. p. 90. 'AXXa rr\v irpoa^Kov- 3 Leg. in. pp. 137, 138. 



280 PLATO. 

This dominion, as we have observed, was only to be found in the 
government of God over the world, and to it, therefore, he would 
have all human government conformed. His sole preference, 
then, is for a theocracy, if such could be realized on earth. His 
slighting manner of speaking of the lower orders of society, and 
of all indeed but those who are gifted with superior talents and 
other natural endowments, is to be ascribed to his general low 
estimate of Human nature, considered apart from that cultivation 
which the highest and most intellectual studies impart to it. 

Eespect for antiquity and prescriptive authority is strongly 
inculcated by Plato. In nothing was the changeableness of all 
generated things more evident than in the ever-varying forms of 
the states of Greece, and especially of Athens itself. The demo- 
cracy of Athens had been an universal market, fl-avTwwX/op, as 
Plato terms an extreme democracy, of all sorts of polities. 1 And 
laws had so far lost their force there in the most corrupt times, 
that everything was transacted by the decrees of the day ; the 
variable determinations of popular assemblies being substituted 
practically in the place of standing Laws, the records of former 
experience and wisdom. Early legislators had devised expedients 
for counteracting this love of change on the part of their country- 
men, as Solon, for instance, and Lycurgus had done. And in 
some instances, we find a temporary and partial expedient 
adopted, by the popular assembly itself fixing the penalty of 
death to the proposal of rescinding a measure before a certain 
period. 2 Plato's expedient was supplied by the principle itself 
of his philosophy. If the Idea of Good was eternal and 
unchangeable, the constant pursuit of change must lead men 
astray from their happiness and the truth. They must be called 
back, therefore, from that which is present and passing, to the 
recollection of the past. They must not look on wisdom as a 
thing which is different to-day from what it was yesterday, or in 
former times, but hold it as what by its very nature is unalter- 
able. To regard it as susceptible of improvement in the lapse of 
time, would be to deny its proper Being, to reduce it to the con- 

1 Bep. viii. 10. 2 Thucyd. ii. 24. 



HIS WRITINGS AND PHILOSOPHY. 281 

dition of mere Becoming. A distrust in the wisdom of any 
existing generation of men, and a sacred reverence for that of 
former generations, and especially for the earliest traditions of 
knowledge, would naturally be inculcated in such a philosophy. 
Thus he highly commends the Lacedemonian and Cretan polities 
for the provision, that no young man should inquire whether the 
laws were good or bad, but that " all should with one voice and 
with one mouth agree in declaring that everything in them is 
well appointed, as being by the appointment of gods ;" and that 
no other sentiment should be allowed to be expressed. Further, 
not even does he permit a young person to be present when 
such matters are considered by the old. 1 In the same spirit, the 
Egyptian immutability in the arts for thousands of years, is 
admired as a proof of admirable legislative and political wisdom. 2 
Even in regard to the fine arts, and to sports and amusements, 
he reprobates the tendency to innovation, as dangerous to the 
serious institutions of a state, on the ground, that changes in 
these lighter matters " imperceptibly change the manners of the 
young, and bring what is primitive into disrepute, and what is 
modern into repute ;" and that there cannot be a greater mischief 
to states than such a habit of "blaming antiquity." 3 

All this, which under certain limitations may be true, appears, 
when thus broadly laid down by Plato, a misapplication of the 
proper sanction of religious truth to truth in general. In Eeligion, 
the only question being what is really taught by its Divine 
Author, there can be no addition made in the course of time to 
the truths revealed except by another Divine Eevelation ; though 
there may be advancement in the exposition and teaching of it. 
What is primitive and ancient, accordingly, in this subject, once 
fully ascertained to be so, is the truth, and the whole truth. 
Only we must not mistake antiquity of exposition and comment, 
for primitiveness of the truth itself; for these admit of improved 
knowledge by human study, when the original truth itself does 
not. The contest between the advocates of the respective claims 
of the past and of the present, in the matter of knowledge, is, 

1 Leg., i. 24, 25. s Ibid, ii. p. 67. 3 Ibid, vii. pp. 338, 339. 



282 PLATO. 

doubtless, much older than the time of Plato. But his authority 
and eloquence have probably been mainly instrumental in 
starting and sustaining the controversy in modern times, through 
the early reception of his philosophy into the literature of the 
Christian church. 

But we may further see a reason for the stress which Plato 
lays on the wisdom of prescription and authority, in that state 
of public opinion to which he is addressing himself. It was not, 
as might be supposed, a state of things corresponding exactly to 
a demand for religious or civil changes, in our days, under 
established governments and institutions. The question of 
change is now gravely discussed, and deliberately carried or 
rejected, not with the view of unsettling everything, but in order 
that some particular institution or law may be established for the 
future. Except in violent outbreaks of human passions long 
pent up within artificial restraints, exasperated by resistance, 
and at length forcing their way out, and levelling all barriers 
before them, as in the instance of the great French Eevolution, 
it cannot be said with truth, of the struggles for particular changes 
in modern institutions, that they have been actuated by the 
mere desire of change, and the hatred of everything established. 
The religion and the civilization of modern times have in some 
measure presented a check to this. But at the centre of move- 
ment in Greece, change was the order of the day. Athens would 
neither rest itself, nor suffer other states to rest. When its very 
demagogues are forced on some occasions to endeavour to repress 
this incessant changeableness ; as Cleon was, when he told the 
Athenians it was better " to have worse laws unmoved, than good 
laws perpetually changed ;"* — it is evident that the spirit of 
change was then developed in its most fearful form. For we 
find the magician himself who had evoked it, starting in terror 
at the apparition, and finding it too strong for his direction and 
control. AovXoi ovreg rcov dst aroffcuv, VKSgowrai ds ruv sto&orwv, l( Slaves 
of every new extravagance, but despisers of what is accustomed," 2 
are the words with which he attempts to exorcise it, and which 

1 Ttracyd. iii. 37. 2 Ibid, c. 38. 



HIS WRITINGS AND PHILOSOPHY. 283 

the historian of the times puts into the mouth of one who, as 
the creature of the system, could most pointedly characterise it. 
Such was that spirit against which Plato had to contend. It 
was an enemy not only to the existing government, but to 
all government, and all law, and all religion and morality. It 
demanded, therefore, tne most forcible counteraction. It was to 
be met by inculcation of the opposite. According to his own 
universal principle, contrary was to be expelled by contrary. 
Everything that was ancient was to be upheld, accordingly, as 
worthy of veneration and acceptance, simply because it was 
ancient. The voice itself of antiquity, though speaking without 
evidence, was to be received with implicit acquiescence and sub- 
mission. Thus it is that Plato is found strenuously appealing to 
the instinctive feeling of his Athenian countrymen, which they 
still retained in spite of the prevailing folly, — the feeling with 
which they so fondly reverted to their early glories, and delighted 
to view themselves in the past ; — and labouring to correct their 
vacillations of present opinion by recalling them to the fixed 
lessons of their memory. 

Political philosophy, then, according to Plato, is the history 
of those changes which the will of man produces in the matter 
of Government and Laws, and an endeavour to limit those 
changes by restoring in the social world the primitive order and 
rule. 

Education is the means by which those changes are counter- 
acted. It avails itself of that principle of contrariety by which 
all changes are carried on ; and endeavours to expel the evil by 
inducing the good. The process by which it carries on this 
effect is, a discipline of the intellect, prescribed by the state, and 
promoted by all its institutions and customs, framed, as these 
are supposed to be, after the idea of the Sovereign Good. That 
discipline lays down a course of exercise for the body as well as 
for the intellect, that the body may be brought into the best 
condition, in order to the exercise of the intellect. The intellect 
itself it conducts through the steps of the several sciences, from 
the bodily and sensible to the unembodied and intellectual, — 



284 PLATO. 

from the phenomenal and changeable to that which has real 
being, and is unchangeable. And thus in Plato's system it is 
classed under the two comprehensive heads of Gymnastics and 
Music ; the latter term being understood, according to its deriva- 
tion, to denote whatever might be ascribed to the inspiration or 
dictation of the muses, as history and philosophy, no less than 
poetry and music; or literature in general. Philosophy itself 
was the ultimate attainment of education, — the result of the 
whole intellectual training of the accomplished man. Ostensibly, 
under this system, there was no peculiar discipline of the heart. 
Indirectly there was; so far as it inculcated purification and 
self-denial. But the strengthening and elevating of the intellect 
was its direct object. Its tendency was thus to exalt the virtues 
of the intellect above those of the heart ; and, in opposition to 
the evidence of facts, to assert the power of knowledge over the 
determinations of the will. Not that Plato denies the existence 
of what we call self-command, or that controlling of the passions 
which is the result of a previous struggle with them. But he 
did not admit (as Aristotle does, and urges against him) that 
reason could ever be overpowered by the passions, or that if 
there were a distinct knowledge of the truth in the mind, it 
could give way to passion. 

In the matter of Eeligion, Plato's theory of Ideas led him 
to see that there were truths above the evidence belonging to 
Experience, and which must be received solely on the ground of 
the Divine Authority. For whilst he taught that the mind of 
man must work its way up to the Ideas by a course of argu- 
ment and discussion and examination of evidence, yet, having 
reached the Ideas themselves, it had attained the ultimatum of 
truth ; no further evidence of these was to be sought ; they 
carried their own light in themselves. So, when any truth was 
presented to the mind, which related immediately to the Divine 
Being, it was not to be supposed capable of being examined in 

1 Aristot. Ethic. Nic. vii. 2. Aris- point, in the result nearly coincides with 
totle, though controverting the extreme him. Ibid, c. 3. 
view of the doctrine of Plato on this 



HIS WRITINGS AND PHILOSOPHY. 285 

itself, and established on any higher ground of internal evidence, 
but must at once be admitted, if there were sufficient external 
authority for it. The only proper question respecting such 
truths is, are they historically true? Is it certain, or at least 
highly probable, that they have descended to us from the Father 
of Lights himself? Have we reason to think that they were 
originally real divine communications, — and are they vouched 
to us as such by a competent evidence ? l Now, in regard to the 
primary principles of the mind, such as we have before spoken 
of, though they are not evidenced by any higher principles, or 
by any conclusions from Experience, they carry their own 
evidence, by their invariable presence in the mind on certain 
occasions, being naturally suggested by such occasions to every 
rational understanding. But the truths of Eeligion are of a 
different nature. They cannot be authenticated by the mind 
itself to itself, as being out of its range of thought. They must 
therefore be authenticated from without. And in regard to these, 
accordingly, we must appeal to the Eeason and "Word of God, 
as the simple, and proper, and unanswerable vouchers of them. 

And such is the notion expressly inculcated by Plato ; when 
he introduces Socrates exhorting Alcibiades to beware of judging 
for himself, what he should ask in prayer from the Gods ; and 
to wait for One that should appear, — One that cared for him, — 
to take the mist from his eyes, and enable him to know both 
good and evil. 2 

This is the account of Plato's disclaimer of all evidence, 
either of demonstration or probability, on matters strictly Divine, 
and his frequent appeal to mythic traditions when his discussion 
touches a mystery of the Divine Being or the Divine conduct. 
He resolves the whole authority of such matters into the evidence 
of "ancient story," iraXuibg \6yog, — and "primitive hearing," ao%aia 

1 Timceus, p. 304. 'Edv odv, & 2w/cpa- edv dpa firjdevbs Vjttov irapex&fie^a eU6- 

res, TroWa vroW&v elirbvTUV irepl B-ewi/ ras, dyairdv xpv' P-epLvq/xevov, Cos 6 \eywv, 

Kal T7)S rod iravrbs yeveaeojs, (xt) bvvarol vp.ecs re ol Kptral, (pvaiv av^pwirLvrjv e^o- 

yiyv&p.e'&a iravri) irdvTUS b.v tovs clvtoxjs p.ev (bare irepl toijtcov top eiKora p-vdov 

avrots dp.oXoyovp.e'vovs Kal d^r}KpL§cop:^- dirodexo^ifovs, pLTjdh Ztl 7repa a7ro5e/c- 

povs \6yovs dtrobovvai, p.r) ^av^do-flf dXX' r£ov. 2 Alcibiad. ii., p. 100. 



286 PLATO. 

axoyi, — and " learning hoary with time," iicfon^ Xi° v V no^'w- 1 In 
speaking of the generation of the subordinate divinities, in the 
Timceus, he makes an observation applicable to the whole subject 
of divine things as treated by him. Instead of entering into 
explicit accounts of them, he observes that the subject is "too 
great for us, and that we must believe those who have spoken 
before, — being the offspring of gods, — in the way in which they 
said it ; and because they must be conceived to have known 
their own ancestors ;" adding, that we cannot refuse credit to 
the " sons of gods, although they speak without probabilities and 
necessary demonstrations, but must follow the rule of believing 
them on their word, as declaring what belongs to them." 2 He 
commends, too, the primitive generation of men for their docility 
in following rules of life founded on oral tradition, — their " hold- 
ing as true the things said concerning both gods and men." 3 
Again, speaking of the state of the dead, and their interest in 
the concerns of men on earth, he appeals to the same kind of 
evidence. " We must believe," he says, " the voices of others in 
such matters, so current as they are, and so extremely ancient ■; 
and it is enough for our belief that legislators, unless they be 
proved absolutely unwise, have asserted them." 4 So justly does 
he insist on the reasonableness of being content with the voice 
of a declaratory authority in matters incapable, by their nature, 
/of a direct evidence from our reason. 

By the heathen philosopher, in the absence of an authentic 
revelation, the authority for such truths was naturally sought in 
ancient traditions, — traditions mounting up beyond all memory 
of their origin, and therefore referable to times when the world 
was yet fresh from the hand of God. The voice of remote and 
undefined antiquity, indeed, by a natural delusion, represents 
itself to the mind as but little different from the sanction of 
eternal truth. For it is but a slight and imperceptible transition 
from the indefinite to the infinite. Many such traditions were 
found in the heathen mythology, connecting themselves with 
another order of things, when gods conversed with men on earth. 

1 Timceus, p. 291. 2 Ibid, p. 324. 3 De Leg. iii. p. 111. 4 Ibid, xi. 150. 



HIS WRITINGS AND PHILOSOPHY. 287 

Some of them, certainly, were full of absurdity and profaneness ; 
and all were disfigured with the colouring of fable ; but still 
there were some, beautiful in the conception, and sublime and 
impressive in the doctrine. Of this latter character, for the 
most part, are those exquisite mythical legends, with which 
Plato has diversified his discussions, throwing the solemnity of 
religion over truths of high importance which he would specially 
enforce. 

Thus, though he has elaborately argued the Immortality of 
the soul, he is not content to leave the question on those abstract 
grounds of conviction. He feels that the conviction which may 
practically influence the conduct, must be drawn from another 
source, — that of a simple belief in some authority declaring it, — 
when he closes the discussion, as in the Phcedo, and in other 
places, with a scenic representation, from the legends of ancient 
tradition, of the doctrines which he has been enforcing. The 
whole of the Timarns, in fact, is a legend rather than a philo- 
sophical inquiry. It appeals, for the reception of its truths, to 
the shadows with which it veils them, and the mystic echoes of 
sounds heard by the listening ear from afar. In that legend, 
indeed, we have very considerable evidence of the pure source, 
from which the heathen world drew much of the sacred truth 
that was wrapped up and disfigured in their fables. We perceive 
in such a document of Ancient Philosophy, at once the sure and 
wide-spread knowledge resulting from a scriptural Eevelation, 
and the obscurity and fallibility of the information of Tradition. 
To this effect are the description in the Timceus, of the Universe 
as the "one" work of the "One Supreme Being," — as the 
" visible likeness of one, Himself the object only of intellectual 
apprehension," — as the " only-generated," [MwyUvig, of the Father 
of all things ; and the strong assertion of the goodness, and 
beauty, and perfection of the Universe ; and particularly, in 
reference to this, that striking passage, " When the Father who 
generated it, perceived, both living and moving, the generated 
glory of the Everlasting Divinities, he was filled with admira- 
tion, and, being delighted, he further contemplated the working 



288 



PLATO. 



it still more to a resemblance of the pattern/' 1 Add to these 
instances the simple and magnificent words which the Father 
of the Universe is supposed to address the generated gods, 
respecting the formation of the bodies of men and other living 
creatures ; 2 bringing before ns the gladness of that day, " when 
the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God 
shouted for joy." The attributing to Him a speech at the first 
formation of man, is alone sufficiently remarkable; and the 
plural address with which it opens, makes the correspondence 
still closer to the sacred words, "And God said, Let us make 
man in our image, after our likeness." The order of the gene- 
ration of things, it may be further observed, agrees with the 
order of the Creation. First, the heavens and the earth are pro- 
duced, and then the living creatures ; and among these Man, 
designated as "the most religious of living things." 3 But at the 
same time there is much confusion and degradation of the high 
subject. We look in vain for those sublime features of the 
inspired account, that the Creation arose out of nothing, by the 
word of God. This is darkly intimated in the shadowy nature 
which the narrative assigns to Body ; but, though it be but a 
shadow, Body still subsists in his system, as the co-eternal 
contrary of the Divine Intelligence. Traces of the descent of 
holy truth, in the like disguise, appear in the references found 
in Plato to early deluges and genealogies ; 4 to the notion of God 
as the Shepherd of his people ; 5 and to accounts of variations in 
the course of the rising and setting of the sun. 6 

Such, then, is the character of Plato's philosophy, both in its 
general method, and in its results, as a theory of the Universe, 
and an information respecting the leading branches of human 
knowledge. 



1 Timceus, 37 (36). 'fis Se tuvrfrtv re 
avrb Kal ££ov iveubrjae rQiv duSiW B-ewi> 
7670^65 dyaXpia 6 yevvqaas irar^p, Tjyda^r) 
re, Kal evtypavdels, %tl dr) /xaXkov 8/moLOP 
Trpbs irb wapabeiypLa eTreporjcrev direpyd- 
craadai. 

2 Qeol 6eG>v &v iyCd SrjfXLOvpybs, irar-qp 
re Zpywv, k. t. X. {Ibid, p. 325.) 



3 Ttibojv to deoaeSiararov. (Ibid, p- 
326.) 

4 Polit. p. 290 ; Leg. i. 

6 Geos Zvefxev avrotis, avrbs iTriaraTuip' 
Kaddwep vvv dvdpuiroi, £Cjov bv irepov dec- 
brepov, d\\a yevij (pavkbrepa avrQv vo- 
fieijovai. {Polit. p. 35.) 

6 Polit. p. 28. The same referred to 
by Herodotus ii., 142. 



HIS WRITINGS AND PHILOSOPHY. 289 

It was concerned, we find, more in investigating and esta- 
blishing first principles, than in drawing out results ; in exciting 
the love of wisdom, rather than in aiding in the research after 
it. With him, indeed, Philosophy and its method of inquiry, as 
we have seen, are one ; and, in like manner, Philosophy and its 
several branches coalesce in his system into one. We have 
spoken of his logical, and physical, and ethical doctrines, as if 
they were distinct subjects ; but in his mind the one theory of 
Ideas held these several doctrines in its embrace, and made 
them indissolubly one with itself./ For his design throughout 
is, to establish universal principles, common to every subject, 
and on these to build a structure of Philosophy, — a counterpart 
in the human mind to the Universe itself, and comprehending 
therefore all that relates to the Deity, to Man, and to the 
Universe. He would place the mind of the philosopher far 
above the scenes in which man lives, and endue him with a 
keenness and range of vision extending over the whole region 
of speculation, and leaving no part, either from its largeness or 
from its minuteness, unexplored. The problem which he under- 
takes to solve is, how all things are both one and many * how, 
amidst the multiplicity of phenomena with which we are sur- 
rounded, a real unity still subsists and pervades the whole. He 
proceeds on the conviction, that to attain to this unity, so far at 
least as our faculties will enable us to attain to it (for in itself it 
is incomprehensible and ineffable), is to find the clue to that 
maze of sensible things which bewilders human observation. 
He was not intent, therefore, on distinguishing and arranging 
the several branches of knowledge, but on bringing all into sub- 
jection to his commanding theory of the perfect unity. He has 
not, in fact, elaborated, or even sketched, any one particular 
science. He has shewn how the sciences may be distributed, or 
rather furnished hints for such a distribution. But he has left 
the task of doing so to others after him, as subordinate agents, 
filling up the details and supplying the omissions of his system. 
His was characteristically a one-making mind. It analysed — 
not, however, for the purpose of finding and arranging the com- 

u 



290 PLATO. 

ponent elements of a subject, but in search of the one vivifying 
principle, which gives form, and truth, and goodness and beauty, 
to everything. He omits, accordingly, to examine with minute- 
ness into secondary agencies, which are the proper study of the 
particular sciences, in order that he may direct attention to the 
master-principle, by which all subordinate principles are held 
together, and by which they work, as concurring causes in the 
infinite variety of actual phenomena, with such energy and con- 
stancy of operation. 1 

It was left for his pupil Aristotle to take up the business of 
Philosophy where he had designedly left it unfinished, and, by a 
more rigorous method, to introduce order into the field of science, 
by assigning to each particular science its distinct objects and 
office. 

It required, indeed, some philosopher worthy of such a master 
to take up the subject where Plato had left it, and to carry it 
out to the fulness of an instructive method, and a systematic 
exposition of truth ; and such a successor was found in Aristotle. 
Aristotle, as controverting the Theory of Ideas, may perhaps be 
regarded by some as an antagonist, rather than a successor, to 
Plato. But every succeeding system of philosophy is partly a 
polemic against its predecessor, by whose labours it nevertheless 
has profited. So it was with the great movement of mind com- 
menced by Plato. It languished under Speusippus and Xeno- 
crates, and the still more remote successors in the Academia. 
But in the Lyceum, the rival school in name, but the rival only 
as the vigorous offspring of the declining parent, a crowd of 
hearers such as that whom the great magician of the Academia 
had called around him, was once more assembled, and Athens 
again assumed the form of an university. In Aristotle's system, 
accordingly, we see the productiveness of those germs of philo- 
sophy which the genius of Plato had planted and reared. Others 
cultivated the germs themselves ; and some fostered them into 
a wild luxuriance. It was by being engrafted on the sturdy 

1 Tim. p. 336. Tavr' odp TravT* tan tt}v rod dpiarov Kara rb bvvarbv ibtav 
tQiv ^vvciitIuv, ots S-eos vir^perovai xPV Tai > diroreXuv. 



HIS WRITINGS AND PHILOSOPHY. 291 

stock of Aristotle's mind, that they received fresh vigour, and pro- 
duced fruits, though not strictly their own, yet partaking of their 
life and richness. And thus has Aristotle been justly described 
by an ancient critic, as the most genuine disciple of Plato. 1 

If we take Plato's philosophy as a whole in its complex form, 
not simply as a system of Philosophy, but a system in which 
Philosophy, and Eloquence, and Poetry, and deep religious 
and moral feeling, are harmoniously combined, it stands alone 
in the history of literature. There is nothing which approaches 
to it under this point of view, — nothing which may be properly 
regarded as a continuation of it. It is a splendid work of rare 
genius, like the Homeric poems or the Athena of Phidias, which 
no other artist has ever equalled. Philosophical dialogues have 
been written in imitation of those of Plato ; but how unlike to 
them, how altogether inferior to them in conception and execu- 
tion ! There is learning, and eloquence, and grace, in whatever 
the accomplished mind of Cicero has touched. But compare his 
most finished specimens in this way with the Dialogues of Plato ; 
and what a deficiency appears ! Dignity and refinement of mind 
and an acquaintance with the stores of philosophy, shine forth 
in the Dialogues of Cicero. But we miss altogether the depth 
and the exquisiteness of thought, the range and the minuteness 
of vision, the exactness of reasoning, the lively sketches of cha- 
racter and manners, which interest and astonish us by their 
combination in the Dialogues of Plato. Xenophon had great 
knowledge of human nature, and has thrown an air of great 
naturalness over his simple descriptions, whether it is conversa- 
tions and moral lessons that he relates, or stirring scenes of 
history. But his Socratic dialogues do not admit of comparison 
with the elaborate efforts of Plato. They were clearly intended 
only as simple accounts of what Socrates had taught, and did not 
aim at any artist-like effect, as compositions. Or, if we turn to the 
Symposium of Plutarch, there, again, much as the author admired 
and studied Plato, we observe an entire want of that tact in the 
management of the dialogue, which so engages our attention 

1 Dionybiusof Halicarnassus. Ep.ad Cn. Pomp. 



292 PLATO. 

amidst the subtilties of Plato's discussions. If we compare, 
again, the philosophical Dialogues of Shaftesbury and Berkeley, 
with any in Plato, we find the like contrast as in those of Cicero. 
Superior as these may be in composition to other efforts of the 
kind in our language, they still give no proper representation of 
the spirit or the form of the Platonic Dialogue. There is no life 
in the interlocutors of these Dialogues ; and the author himself is 
scarcely concealed behind their masks. Nor are there any touches 
of natural feeling or incident to connect the argument with the 
personality of the speakers; such as those in the Phcedo; where 
the discussion opens with the loosing of the chains from the limbs 
of Socrates, his bending and rubbing his leg, and expressing the 
pleasure arising from the contrast of his pain before ; circum- 
stances, not merely thrown in by way of dramatic interest, but 
leading, in immediate application, to the argument in hand. As 
we have said, then, the philosophy of Plato, taken in connection 
with the admirable compositions in which it is contained, stands 
alone in the history of literature. It is due to the charm of the 
composition, that the interest of the reader is sustained amidst 
much of dry abstract speculation, requiring the closest attention, 
and considerable acquaintance with the subjects of philosophical 
discussion, in order to follow it. It was this charm in great 
measure, doubtless, which rendered the writings of Plato, in 
spite of their abstruseness and subtilty in many parts, so accept- 
able to Grecian taste. He had his critics also and censors ; but 
all seem to have concurred in placing him at the head of the 
philosophical writers of Greece. Objection was taken by some 
to the severity of his sarcasm against the leading Sophists and 
other great names. Complaint, too, was made of his putting 
sentiments and words into the mouth of Socrates which Socrates 
had never used; and of his anachronisms, in bringing together 
in conversation, persons, who, from the period at which they 
flourished, or other circumstances, could never have met. But 
these were merely minute criticisms. It was seen by those who 
entered into the spirit of his writings, that he was still the great 
master throughout, — that he was not giving, in his Dialogues, a 



HIS WHITINGS AND PHILOSOPHY. 293 

history of individuals or of the times, but a general character of 
classes of men, and the prevailing tone, both of philosophical 
discussion and of popular opinion. The enlightened critic saw 
that Socrates, for example, is not portrayed by him simply as 
Socrates, but as the characteristic spokesman of the system on 
which he is engaged; — and in like manner, that if he brings 
together persons of different periods, he disregards the anachron- 
ism, that he may enunciate the doctrines inquired into, in 
their proper person. 

The perfection to which he wrought the style of his most 
elaborate Dialogues, will be apparent to those who study them 
accurately under this point of view. So fastidious, indeed, is 
the taste with which they have been wrought into their present 
form, that it cannot be duly appreciated without an accurate and 
even delicate observation. Every word seems chosen with care, 
and every clause of his periods made to flow with its proper 
rhythm ; and this effect at the same time is produced out of the 
ordinary materials of the language. The words and idioms are 
those of conversation, and the way in which they are put 
together seems, at the first view, to be as unstudied as mere con- 
versation. But the result is an exquisite composition, in regard 
to which we are at a loss to pronounce whether the depth and 
the elegance of the thought, or the grace and propriety of expres- 
sion, most prevail. 1 It is evident that he was not the first to 
compose Dialogues ; were we to look simply to the finished 
form in which his Dialogues have been executed. They are, 
doubtless, not the first efforts in that way. But the school of 
Elea had preceded him in this style. More particularly, how- 
ever, we are told that Alcamenus of Teos was the first to write 
Dialogues ; or at least his is the earliest name to which, on the 
testimony of Aristotle, in a work now lost, the honour of origi- 
nating the Dialogue has been assigned. But we need look no 
further than to the Greek drama for the first thought of the 

1 The fastidiousness of taste with of the Republic having been found with 
which he touched his compositions, is the clauses variously transposed. Dio- 
llustrated by the account of the opening nys. Hal. De Comp. Pub. 25. 



294 PLATO. 

Platonic Dialogue. The Mimes of Sophron, and the Comedies 
of Epicharmus, probably furnished materials from which he was 
enabled, if not to mould, at least to enrich his Dialogues. The 
Mimes of Sophron, indeed, it is said, found a place under his 
pillow. 1 And what are the Protagoras, the Gorgias, and the 
Symposium, it may be asked — the particular Dialogues in which 
he has most displayed his dramatic power — but philoso- 
phical comedies in prose, analogous to the Clouds of Aristo- 
phanes, and only differing from that play, as addressed to a 
higher class of hearers, and as intended, not to call forth the 
applause of spectators, but to elicit thought from a reader. 

Nor, in touching on the peculiar excellences of Plato's Dia- 
logues, ought we to omit to notice especially, under this point of 
view, the delightful mythic narratives with which he has adorned 
and relieved his abstract discussions. The art with which he has 
introduced them is most admirable. They are openings of rich 
scenery suddenly presented to the view when least expected * — 
tales of an Arabian night succeeding to a morning's pastime of 
disputation in some school of Greece ; — solemn shadows from an 
unseen world casting their majestic forms over some ordinary 
incident of daily life. But they are not to be regarded only as 
embellishments and reliefs to the argument. They bear an 
important part in the teaching itself of his philosophy. They 
Soften down the outline of his reasonings, — taking from them 
that positive didactic form in which they might appear amidst 
the strife of debate, and as wrought out by discussion. The 
knowledge which his theory aims at imparting is that of 
■Eeminiscence, as we have shewn ; and he would not, accordingly, 
have the results of his inquiry present themselves as anything 
else but Eeminiscence. We are, indeed, to search out the reason 
of things. We are not to rest in mere opinion, but to battle our 
way against error and falsehood, until we rise to the eternal 
Ideas, the causes of all knowledge, as they are the causes of all 
Being. Still, we are not to suppose that we can distinctly com- 
prehend the eternal Ideas in themselves. Though they are at 

1 Diog. Laert. in Vit. 



HIS WRITINGS AND PHILOSOPHY. 295 

last intellectually discerned ; it is only " at the last," and that 
" scarcely." 1 For they carry up the eye of the soul to the foun- 
tain of all knowledge, — the Divine Being himself, who cannot 
be conceived, much less denned in words. 2 The mythic legends 
admirably combine with the refutative form of the discussions 
to leave this impression of indefiniteness on the mind. Whilst 
the mind's eye is directed steadily to the objects which can 
alone give stability and certainty to its knowledge, we are thus 
throughout reminded by Plato, that we live amidst shadows and 
darkness ; and that our eye must be purified, and endued with 
heavenly light, before it can look undazzled on the truth itself. 

1 Bep. vii., p. 133. 'Epry yvuerQ rekevrala, tjtov aycfoov I5<=a, Kal nbyis dpacfoai. 

2 Tim., p. 303. 



SOCRATES. 



The name of Socrates is familiar to every one among his earliest 
classical recollections. Who has not heard of the Athenian 
sage, the great moralist of heathenism, and his persecution and 
constancy even to death ? There is no name indeed which stands 
forth more conspicuously in the history of the Philosophy, or of 
the Religion, or of the general Civilization of the ancient world. 
It marks a distinct era in the progress of the human race. The 
character of a great period in the history of man is concentrated, 
in fact, in the life and teaching of this extraordinary individual ; 
and his name accordingly has descended to us with all the 
importance of the crisis itself at which he flourished; recom- 
mended as it is to our affection and admiration, not so much by 
the characteristics of his personality, as by the tradition of his 
influence and authority. 

For when we come to consider his particular biography, we 
find our attention arrested by little that belongs to the indivi- 
dual. We read of a long life passed for the most part in uniform 
tenour within the walls cf his native Athens; and until we 
come to its tragical close, scarcely distinguished in point of 
incident from that of the mass of his contemporaries. When, 
again, we ask for writings from which, as from the proper mirror 
of the philosopher's mind, we may collect some express linea- 
ments of his character and teaching, we find nothing even on this 
ground on which our curiosity can fasten ; so little have we 
derived that interest, which the mention of Socrates now 
awakens, from himself immediately; and so much, on the other 
hand, are we indebted for our acquaintance with this philosopher 
to a popular feeling preserving, and handing down to us the 
name which represents the thought and character of an age. 



298 SOCRATES. 

The conjuncture of events at the time of Socrates was pecu- 
liarly favourable to the development of such a character. 
Socrates, born at Athens in the year 469 or 470 B.C., grew up to 
manhood during those years when Athens, standing on the 
proud eminence of her victories of Marathon and Salamis, was 
consolidating her power as a sovereign state and seat of empire. 
In the course of the fifty years which intervened between her 
triumphant resistance to the Persian invasion and the commence- 
ment of the Peloponnesian war, Athens, like Eome in her 
struggle with her Italian neighbours, had gradually converted 
her allies in the islands and on the coasts of Asia Minor and 
Thrace into dependent subjects and tributaries. But Athens 
had not, like Eome, the prudence to combine these scattered 
members of her empire, elements of discord and trouble as 
much as of strength to the sovereign state, by the free communi- 
cation of the rights of citizenship. Nor indeed could this wise 
expedient have availed in the case of Athens as in that of Eome. 
For the states over which the empire of Athens extended, were 
either independent governments reluctantly submitting to her 
yoke, or the weak dependencies of a rival power, and indisposed 
to acknowledge the sovereignty of Athens but so long as that 
power wanted the vigour and the enterprize to head a coalition 
against the common oppressor. There were thus in the very 
constitution of the Athenian empire, materials of jealousy and 
disunion, which no line of conduct but the impolitic one of sur- 
rendering an arbitrary rule into the hands of the people who had 
groaned under it, could long have kept from explosion. And, in 
fact, it was not the policy of Athens (masterly as that policy was 
under the hands of her great leaders) which sustained her empire 
for more than fifty years, so much as the inertness of her great 
rival, Lacedsemon, and the difficulty of bringing the several 
grievances of the subject-states to bear on some decisive point, 
capable of influencing the movement of the whole in a strenuous 
concerted effort of resistance. At length we see this effort in the 
outbreak of the Peloponnesian war, in the year 431 B.C., as well 
as the difficulty of it, in the complicated diplomacy by which 



STATE OF ATHENS IN HIS TIME. 299 

that great movement was preceded, and. in the reluctance 
of Lacedaemon to bring home to herself the necessity of exer- 
tion. 

But, whilst Athens was thus aggrandizing herself against 
a day of retribution from the insulted states of Greece,, she 
enjoyed the sunshine of her day of empire, in the brilliant 
assemblage, which she then witnessed within her walls, of 
the great, and the learned, and the eloquent, from all parts 
of Greece. 1 While her arms and her enterprize were setting 
foot on every sea and land, her attractiveness as a home -of 
genius and civilization, was evidenced in the number of strangers 
frequenting her porticoes, and groves, and theatres, and temples, 
and the houses of her nobles. During thirty years of this period 
of glory, the philosopher Anaxagoras was employed in propa- 
gating there the doctrines of the Ionic school, honoured by the 
patronage of her great men, and the revered master of her choicest 
spirits in the newly-acquired taste for philosophical inquiry. 
JSTor was philosophy, in the strict sense of the term, as a science 
of Nature and the Universe, alone pursued, but rather in its 
application to the social and political requirements of the day. 
The importance of oratory in order to political power and influ- 
ence, was now more and more recognized; especially as it was 
evidenced in the conspicuous example of Pericles. Rhetoric, 
therefore, became the favourite study of every aspirant to the 
honours of office in the state. Athens, accordingly, formed a 
great centre of attraction to those who professed to teach the art 
of Rhetoric in its understood acceptation, as the key to political 
wisdom and importance. The demand for such instruction was 
chiefly supplied, as has been before pointed out, 2 by the Sophists 
within her walls, surrounded by crowds of admiring pupils from 
the highest rank of her citizens. There also were now collected, 
as in a school of all arts, the great masters of the drama, of 
sculpture, and painting, and music, and the gymnastic exercises. 
To these means and opportunities for the cultivation of talent of 

1 Isocrat. Panegyr. Kai rb irXijdos tQv acpLKvovixtvwv cos i]/xds toctovtov ianv, 
k. t. X. p. 59. 2 Plato, supra. 



300 SOCEATES. 

every order, whether of mind or body, must be added also the 
acquaintance imparted with the works of the poetic genius of 
the early period of the literature of the Greeks, such as the 
poems of Homer, and Hesiod, and others, and of Homer in par- 
ticular, by the Ehapsodists, so called, who recited and inter- 
preted them in public. This in itself, when books were scarcely 
accessible to many, must have served as one great instrument of 
general education. So that Athens, at this time, contained 
within her own bosom abundant resources for the enlargement 
of the mind, whether in the eminent men who formed her society, 
in the lectures and conversation of the professors of science, or 
in noble works, the specimens and examples of what genius 
could effect. Athens contained, also, doubtless, much to ener- 
vate and corrupt the moral judgment, whilst she presented 
every thing to exalt the imagination and refine the taste. Her 
political institutions, well-balanced as they had been left by 
Solon, were now violently disturbed. In the course of these 
years of imperial greatness and prosperity, they received a large 
infusion of that licentious spirit, which the naval successes of 
the Athenians had engendered in the lower order of the citizens, 1 
and the flattery of successive demagogues had fostered and 
diffused through the whole of the state. Now, also, faction 
divided the ties of family and kindred, and formed associations 
of the people for every lawless purpose of private ambition and 
cupidity. Their highest and purest court, — one principal anchor 
of the state, according to the intention of their great legislator, 2 
— the Areopagus, was mutilated in its powers. And whilst 
numerous courts of law, thronged by their hundreds of judges, 
chosen by lot from the whole body of citizens, were constantly 
open, 8 and an idle populace were encouraged, by pay from the 
public treasury, to attend on the business of these courts, the 
functions of the legislative and deliberative bodies were virtually 

1 Aristot. Polit. ii. 9, rijs vavapxtas t)ttov h ad\(p rrjv ir6\iv foeadai, k. t. X. 
yap iv rots ~M.rj5i.Kois 6 Srjfios a'irios yei>6- 3 Aristoph. Nub. 208. 

[xevos, €<ppovrjfiaTio-dri, k. t. X. a'i5e [xkv "Adrjvai. Sr. ri <rv Xeyeis ; 

2 Plutarch. Solon, 19, ol6fievos eirl ov ireidofxai. 

dual /SouXcus ioairep dyKvpais 6pp:ovaav, iirel diKaaras ou% opd Ka8yp.evovs. 



STATE OF ATHENS IN HIS TIME. 301 

suspended. The peremptory power of these judicial committees, 
in which the people at large felt and exercised a despotic 
authority, became the real executive of the state. Then came 
into intense activity the vile system of sycophancy, — a system, 
under which the life and property of the wealthy were at the 
mercy of every needy adventurer who could speak to the pas- 
sions of the people, and earn a livelihood for himself by a career 
of successful prosecutions. 

Nor was public corruption unattended by its usual evils of 
private luxury and debauchery. At this time too, there might 
be observed in the heart of a city which prided itself on its pious 
feeling, 1 and amidst the frequency and splendour of festivals and 
external rituals of religion, 2 a profane scepticism with regard to 
the fundamental principles of religion and morality. A spirit of 
self-conceit and of presumption of knowledge, already natural to 
the Athenians, had now widely spread among the people ; and 
every one was by turns dogmatist or sceptic, — according as it 
was his own opinion that he asserted, — or as he might display 
his ingenuity in questioning some received principle, or disputing 
some opinion proposed by another. 

Add to these circumstances, the effect of a large slave 
population, the degraded ministers to the wants and the 
wealth of an insolent body of citizens, and of a number of 
resident foreigners engaged in carrying on the manufactures 
and trade of the city, paying a tax for their protection, and 
contributing to the military strength of the state, though 
excluded from its franchise. The slave, indeed, and the 
foreigner, lived more happily at Athens than at Lacedsemon, or 
perhaps any other city of Greece, especially during a time of 
war, when their services were needful to the state. 3 Slavery, 
therefore, acted probably less injuriously on the character of the 

1 Soph. (Ed. Col. 1006, all religion, but even derided those who 
eirisyrj deotis eTriaTarai concerned themselves with it. 

rifiais ae(3Lt;eiv, 7]de roW virepfpipei. 3 Aristoph. Nub. 6. 

2 Xenophon, Memorabilia, i. c. 4, airb\oio St)t\ S 7r6Ae/ie, ttoWlov ovvaca, 
gives an instance in Aristodemus of 6V ovbk /coXacr' il-eeri jioi roi/s oUhas. 
one, who, not only had a contempt for Also Xen. Eep. Ath., c. i. 



302 SOCRATES. 

Athenian master, than it did elsewhere in Greece. It was tem- 
pered by the social humour of the people. But the facility thus 
afforded to the citizens of living in indolence and ease, and 
abandoning all domestic employment for the excitement of the 
public assemblies, and the courts, and the spectacles, naturally 
induced a neglect of the private and domestic duties. There is 
reason to believe, that whilst the Athenians appeared in the face 
of the world the most light-hearted of men, they were secretly 
unhappy in their homes ; living in listlessness from day to day 
on the alms of their public pay ; many of them reduced from 
affluence to poverty through the loss of lands and property by the 
ravages and pressure of war, and yet unable or unwilling to use 
the' necessary exertions to relieve themselves from their distress. 
It is evidently no singular instance which Xenophon has 
given of this state of things at Athens, when he tells us of 
Aristarchus complaining to Socrates of the number of poor female 
relatives who, from losses in the course of the Peloponnesian 
war, were thrown on him for support. The difficulty which 
Aristarchus felt, was, that he could not expect persons who were 
free-born and his own kindred, to undertake any manual labour, 
so as to assist in maintaining themselves. Happily, however, he 
adopts the friendly suggestion of Socrates, and makes the experi- 
ment of setting them actively to work. The money necessary 
for procuring the materials is borrowed ; the wool for the work 
is purchased ; and the females were then busied in the profit- 
able exercise of the art, which, in their prosperous days, they 
had learned only as the proper employment of their sex, and 
the amusement of their leisure. Such was the effect indeed, of 
this happy counsel of Socrates on the inmates of the house, 
that now the complaint was retorted on the master, that he 
was the only one in it that eat in idleness ; to which Socrates, 
in his characteristic manner, bade him reply by the fable of 
the dog ; how, when the sheep complained to their owner, " that 
he gave nothing to them who supplied him with wool, and 
lambs, and cheese, but what they took from the earth ; whilst 
to the dog he gave some of his own food ;" the dog, on hearing 



STATE OF ATHENS IN HIS TIME. 303 

it, said ; " true, for I am the one that keeps you from being 
either stolen by men or seized by wolves ; since, for your part, 
unless I guarded you, you could not even feed, through fear of 
being destroyed." As the sheep then conceded to the dog the 
privilege of honour, so Aristarchus might say to his relatives, 
that he acted the part of the dog, as their guard and superinten- 
dent, enabling them to live securely and agreeably at their work. 1 
The experiment, however, fully succeeded; and contentment and 
cheerfulness were introduced to a home, where before, from the 
distress of the case, all was gloom and mutual suspicion. 

In the meantime, a great number of mechanics and trades- 
men had risen to wealth and importance, in consequence of the 
demand for every species of labour and trade, resulting from the 
multiplied population of the city and its numerous foreign de- 
pendencies and connections, and, in particular, from the magni- 
ficent public works carried on during the administration of 
Pericles. All this while, Athens was becoming more and more 
a mercantile community, in the midst of strong aristocratic pre- 
judices still surviving, and rendered, indeed, more intense by 
the opposition growing up around them. In many instances, the 
older families would be declining in wealth, exhausted by the 
burthens of the state or the extravagance of individual expendi- 
ture ; whilst new families, the creations of successful trade and 
enterprize, would be obtaining influence by the force of their 
wealth, and encroaching on the privileged ground hitherto occu- 
pied only by right of birth. It may be easily conceived, there- 
fore, that the mass of the society of the city would be now all 
fermentation and restlessness ; the one class pushing their 
interests and their claims to equality founded on their personal 
title, whilst the other obstinately clung to the exclusiveness and 
the pride of hereditary right. 

But we shall best judge of the distempered state of the social 
atmosphere of Athens, by adverting to the character of female 
society as it existed there. It has often been remarked, as the 
glory of modern and Christian civilization, that it has restored 

1 Xen. Mem., ii. 7. 



304 SOCRATES. 

woman to her due place in the scale of social importance, and 
thus most effectually chastened and elevated the general inter- 
course of human life. In a country so essentially social as 
Greece, and especially at Athens, it was practically impossible 
to impose on the women the absolute seclusion of eastern despo- 
tism. Still it was even at Athens the rule, that the wives and 
daughters of citizens should live in the strictest privacy of their 
homes : the only occasion on which they appeared in public 
being at the public sacrifices when they took part in the sacred 
ceremonial. 

In an interesting sketch which Xenophon has given of what 
appears an excellent specimen of married life at Athens, he de- 
scribes the wife as coming to her new home, ignorant of every- 
thing beyond the work of the distaff and the web. She had been 
married when not yet fifteen years old, and had spent her pre- 
vious life in seclusion under the strict superintendence of her 
parents, " so that she might see as few things as possible, hear 
as few things as possible, ask about as few things as possible." 
" Her mother had simply told her," she says, " her business was 
to be modest." 1 

But whilst the virtuous matron and her daughters were ex- 
cluded from the social circles, the place which they should have 
held in Athenian society was, as before noticed, 2 filled by other 
females, strangers to family ties, and attracted to Athens by the 
licentiousness and wealth of an imperial city. The union of 
high intellectual acquirements, and a masculine dignity of under- 
standing, in some distinguished individuals of this class, with 
the graces of female loveliness, appealed with a powerful interest 
to the sensual elegance of Grecian taste. We find, accordingly, 
at Athens, at this time, forming, as it were, the female court of 
the sovereign people, the Milesian Aspasia, and others of less 
name, living in the profession of a dissolute course of life, not 
only without shame or scandal, but even in the enjoyment of 

1 Xen. (Econom., c. 7, s. 15. T6p 5' fy- ifibv 5' ^rja-ev 77 £07x77/9 tpyov elvai 

irpoa^tev XP^ V0V ^f 7 ? v^b T'oXKrjs ewifie- cucppoveiv. 
Xelas, birus Cjs iXaxi-crra p.h 6\j/clto, e\d%- 2 Plato, supra, p. 186. 

terra 5' anotiaoiTO, iXaxi-crra 8' gpocro . . . 



HIS EDUCATION. 305 

public respect. We may judge how deeply corrupted must have 
been the standard of public opinion in Greece, when female 
profligacy could thus avert the eye of moral observation and 
censure from itself. So thoroughly had refinement of intel- 
lectual taste and of manners, together with the grossest impurity 
of morals, pervaded the whole society of Athens, that even those 
who were elevated above the world around them in talents, and 
strength of character, and ldndliness of disposition, as Socrates 
was, imbibed in some measure the poison of the infected atmo- 
sphere which they breathed. 

Such, then, was that state of things in which Socrates was 
trained, and which will greatly account to us for the peculiar 
form which the character of his philosophical teaching exhibits. 
For he was ever an Athenian instructing Athenians. He spoke 
as one fully conversant with the habits of thought and action of 
his countrymen ; as knowing what kind of instruction they most 
needed, and by what mode of address he might win their attention. 
We might expect, therefore, to see in him some leading traits of 
the Athenian civilization of his time ; a teaching, admirable 
indeed in its main features, but bearing, at the same time, some 
marks of that corrupt state of society which called it forth, and 
to which it was immediately addressed. 

The son of Sophroniscus, a sculptor, and Phaenarete a 
midwife, and himself brought up in his father's art, he yet 
enjoyed those advantages of mental culture and social refine- 
ment which were common to every citizen of the democratic 
Athens. The meanness of his birth and his poverty, much as 
high birth and wealth were esteemed there, would not exclude 
him from familiar intercourse with persons of the highest rank 
and consideration in the state. Nor, indeed, could the advan- 
tages of education be restricted to a privileged few, where every 
one lived in public, and where knowledge was for the most 
part acquired and communicated by conversation and oral dis- 
cussion. 

If, in the general relaxation of discipline at Athens, the 
citizen was no longer obliged to submit himself to a prescribed 

x 



306 SOCRATES. 

course of education under the eye of the state, and it was left to 
each person to avail himself, or not, of the sources of instruction 
presented in the intellectual society of the city, Socrates was not 
a person to neglect the advantages placed in his way. Money 
he had not to pay to the Sophists, the great masters of his day. 
But he had from childhood an inquisitive mind. He felt that 
he was thrown on his own resources of thought, and that he 
must be his own master in the art of education. And to this 
great object he appears to have bent from the earliest time, 
all the powers of his energetic mind ; making it his constant 
employment to inquire from every one, 1 and collect on every 
occasion, some hint towards the right prosecution of it. We 
may picture to ourselves the young Socrates, resembling the 
Socrates of mature life, freely entering into conversation with all 
to whom he had access ; feeling and acknowledging his own 
ignorance ; listening attentively to all that he heard ; weigh- 
ing and discussing it in his own mind with patience and 
acuteness ; and not resting until he had traced it out in all 
its bearings to the utmost of his power. Thus would he 
gradually form and strengthen that faculty of observation, and 
that analytical acumen for which he was afterwards so eminently 
distinguished. 

Nor has Plato improbably put a prophecy of his future erni- 
Inence in the mouth of one of the great masters of the day, when 
he makes Protagoras say of him, with the self-complacency of 
the man of established reputation : " For my part, Socrates, I 
commend your spirit, and the method of your reasoning ; for 
whilst in other points I am no bad sort of person, as I think, I 
am the farthest from being an envious one. For concerning you 
in particular, I have already observed to many, that of all I 
meet, I admire you by far the most ; of those of your own age, 
even to the extreme ; and I say too, I should not be astonished 
if you were to turn out a man of celebrity for philosophy/' 2 To 
the same effect is the story, that his father being at a loss how 

1 Plato, Ladies, p. 186, c, ey& ixh odv, k.t.X. p. 176. 
2 Plato, Protag. p. 193. 



HIS EDUCATION. 307 

to educate him, consulted the Delphic oracle, and was advised 
to leave him entirely to his own bent, inasmuch as he had a 
director in himself superior to a thousand teachers. 1 The simple 
interpretation of what is here thrown into the form of marvel 
probably is, that he gave, even when a child, striking indications 
of a devotedness to those studies which became the business of 
his manhood. 

The notice of a wealthy individual of Athens, the excellent 
Crito, appears to have been early attracted to Socrates. Crito 
was of about the same age as Socrates ; 2 and an attachment to 
the pursuit of philosophy, and an admiration of the character of 
Socrates, naturally led to that intimacy which he now commenced 
with the young philosopher, and steadily maintained through 
his subsequent life. Through him Socrates was relieved from 
the necessity of earning his livelihood by the profession of a 
sculptor ; or, as Laertius expresses it, " was raised from the 
workshop/' 3 Sculpture, indeed, was in high honour at Athens, 
especially at this time. For Phidias, enjoying the protection of 
Pericles, was now adorning the city with the immortal produc- 
tions of his own chisel, as well as other noble works of art 
executed under his taste and direction. But to follow up the 
profession with success, required a devotion of mind and hand 
that must preclude the opportunities indispensable for the moral 
student. And though, for a time, Socrates worked at the art, — 
and with success, if a statue of the Graces in the citadel of 
Athens, attributed to him, were really his workmanship ; — we 
may imagine how distasteful the occupation, however intellectual 
in itself, must have been to a mind, so eager for observation on 
living man, so intent on mental and moral phenomena, as that 
of Socrates ; and how gladly he would exchange the labour of his 
paternal art for that philosophic leisure which the friendship of 
Crito held out to him. 

The world of that day reproached the philosophers with 
servility, taunting them with being ever seen at the " gates of the 

1 Plutarch. De Gen. Socr. 2 Plato, AjjoI. p. 78, ifibs i]\uad}T7]s. 

3 Diog. Laert. in vit. 



308 SOCRATES. 

rich." In some instances the reproach may have been just. But 
in general, the fact was the reverse. Their society rather was 
courted by the great and wealthy, who were proud of the reputa- 
tion of being patrons of philosophy. To Socrates, indeed, the 
patronage of a man of wealth would be peculiarly acceptable, not 
so much for the means of subsistence, about which he was 
absolutely thoughtless and indifferent, as for the society itself to 
which he would thus be introduced, and the opportunity of 
carrying on his researches into philosophy, both by books and 
by the oral instructions of its living professors. To him it would 
be the very means by which he would enlarge his field of moral 
observation. The social evenings of Athens were the natural 
sequences of the mornings of the agora, and the courts, and the 
council, and the assembly. They prolonged in festive conver- 
sation that strife of words and competition of argument, which 
had been begun in the busy and serious discussions of the morn- 
ing, and of which the last murmurs had scarcely died away on 
the ear of the assembled guests. Tor Athenian life was a life of 
constant excitement. What Demosthenes observed an hundred 
years afterwards, and an Apostle four hundred years later still, — 
that the Athenians did nothing but go about and ask the latest 
news of the day, — was a characteristic of the people already 
strongly developed at this period of their history. Socrates, who, 
in his own person, gave a philosophical cast to this inquisitive 
spirit, would be peculiarly interested by such opportunities of 
exercising it as were presented in the animated encounters of 
the symposium. There he would see human nature displayed 
in some of its most striking forms. There he would meet the 
citizen full of years and honours, experienced in the arts of 
government and diplomacy, and in the service of the state by 
land and sea ; the poet flushed with his victories in the dramatic 
contest ; the sophist armed at all points for the display ; the 
philosopher expounding his theories ; the orator, the idol of the 
people in his day ; the courtly patron of literature ; and a circle 
of young men, the flower of the highest rank in the state ; each 
bearing his part in the free and lively interchange of thought, 



HIS EDUCATION. 309 

emulously provoking one another to discussion, and contending 
for the mastery in the conflict of debate. 

By such society Socrates would be effectually prepared for 
that active enterprize of philosophy, which formed the whole 
engagement of his life. In the meagre information handed 
down to us respecting the details of his history, we are not 
able to ascertain at what precise period of life he began his 
career of public teaching, or at least attracted notice as the 
philosopher of Athens. The transition would probably be 
gradual, from the youthful inquirer, to the mature and expert 
teacher of others. This transition would be the less perceptible 
in the case of Socrates, from the circumstance, that he never 
professed to teach, even when he was most actively employed in 
teaching; but still, at the last, as he had done from the first, 
merely to inquire} For his part, he disdained the profession of 
philosophy. He was disgusted with the vain pretension advanced 
by the Sophists, of being masters of every science, and capable 
of imparting instruction on any given subject. He accordingly 
set out with the antagonist position, that he knew nothing : that 
his only wisdom, if he possessed any beyond other men, consisted 
in his being aware of his real ignorance ; whilst others ignorantly 
presumed on the possession of a knowledge which they had not. 
His teaching, therefore, was only a continuation of the process 
of education of his own mind, by extending it to the minds of 
others. He was fond of describing it as an examination or 
scrutiny of the mind ; a method of finding out the real condition 
of each mind, and so of preparing it for the due exercise of its 
powers in the practical emergencies of human life. He saw that 
the evils of life arose, in great part, from the wrong judgments of 
men, — from their mistaking their own powers, presuming on 
their knowledge, and ability, and the truth of opinions adopted 
without inquiry. He endeavoured then to effect the cure of 
human error and unhappiness by a reformation of the intellect. 
The first step towards this would be taken, if men could be only 
divested of this vain self-confidence ; if they could be brought 

1 Diog. Laert. Pausanias, i. 22 ; ix. 35. 



310 SOCRATES. 

to suspect that they might be mistaken in their judgments, and 
so to question themselves. This preliminary labour was employ- 
ment enough for any one man's life, especially in a society such 
as that of Athens, so entirely infected with the sophistical leaven. 
Socrates wisely confined his exertions to this simple object. He 
is content to excite inquiry, — to provoke discussion, — and thus 
to suggest the necessity of self-discipline in order to right judg- 
ment. He does not, like other philosophers, quit the seclusion 
of a study, or the field of foreign travel, to come forth to the 
world the accomplished teacher of the accumulated wisdom of 
years of solitary thought and reflection. Whilst philosophizing 
in the agora and the streets of Athens, in the workshops of the 
artizan, or at the banquets of the rich, he is still employed in 
the work of disciplining the mind. Thus he passes on insensibly 
from the education of himself to the education of others, and it 
is difficult consequently, or rather impossible, to say in his case, 
where the character of the learner ends, or where that of the 
philosopher and teacher begins. 

Yet, entirely as Socrates disregarded all positive knowledge, 
and threw himself on the resources of a shrewd and extensive 
observation of human nature, we must not suppose that he 
neglected to inform himself in the existing systems of philosophy, 
and the particular sciences as they were then understood and 
taiight. There is reason to believe that he had accurately studied 
the systems of the early physical philosophers of the Ionic school, 
as well as the moral and mathematical theories of the Pytha- 
goreans, and the dialectics of the school of Elea. Without sup- 
posing him so deeply versed in the doctrines of the several 
schools as might be inferred from his exact discussions in the 
dialogues of Plato, there is still ample evidence, from the more 
direct account of Xenophon, that he was by no means ignorant 
of them. He had doubtless read much, 1 as well as observed 
much, when he commenced his philosophic mission. Xenophon 
indeed tells us that Socrates considered the physical and dialec- 
tical theories of his predecessors as unprofitable. But he takes 

1 Xenopli. Mem. i. 6. 



HIS EDUCATION. ^11 

care to add, that Socrates was not -unacquainted with these 
theories. And in particular, as to the sciences of Astronomy and 
Geometry, he thought the attention of the student wasted in 
investigating their more abstruse theorems. But he was able 
(as Xenophon further observes) to speak on the subjects of these 
sciences also from his own knowledge of them. 1 

Nor are we to suppose that, whilst he had properly no master 
in that line of philosophical study which he had marked out for 
himself, he had no aid in the cultivation of his mind, from the 
living masters of philosophy in his day. The long residence of 
Anaxagoras at Athens, probably coincides in time with part of 
the early life of Socrates. 2 To him, therefore, Socrates would 
naturally have access, as well as to Archelaus, 3 his disciple, and 
the inheritor of his doctrines. If he had no personal intercourse 
with Anaxagoras, it appears from the testimony of Plato, that he 
was acquainted with the famous treatise of Anaxagoras, which 
contained his theory of the Universe. 4 And perhaps we may 
distinctly trace the early and abiding influence of the lessons of 
this great philosopher throughout the teaching of Socrates, in 
his uniform maintenance of the principle of an all-disposing 
mind, the glory of the system of Anaxagoras. 

To the writings of Heraclitus, his attention appears to have 
been drawn by the poet Euripides ; if the anecdote be true, as 
related by Laertius, that on being asked by Euripides, who had 
put them into his hand, what he thought of them, he replied, 
alluding to the studied obscurity of that philosopher ; " What I 
understand is excellent ; so also, I suppose, is what I do not 
understand ; only there is need of some Delian diver to reach 
the sense." 5 He had also opportunities of conversing with Zeno 

1 Xenoph. Mem. iv. 7. of Anaxagoras appear to have been ex- 

2 The chronology of the life of Anaxa- tensively circulated. Socrates is made, 
goras is very doubtful, in Plato's Apology, 26 D, to say to, his 

3 Archelaus is called both a Milesian chief accuser, Meletus, o?« avrotis &TreL- 
and an Athenian. The probability is povs ypafifxarcou etvai, &<rre ovk eiMvat otl 
that he was a Milesian ; since philo- t<x Wva^ayopov j3i£\i'a rod KXafo/zewou 
sophy had scarcely yet found a home at y£p.et. tovtuv tQ>v \6yiov; 

Athens. 5 Diog. Laert. in vit. 

4 Plato, Fhcedo, p. 97. The writings 



312 SOCRATES. 

the Eleatic, and Theodoras of Cyrene ; the former eminent for 
his dialectical skill, the latter the most distinguished geometrician 
of the time. And though his scanty means precluded his attend- 
ance on the lectures of the sophist Prodicus, he would on several 
occasions have been among the company assembled at the house 
of some wealthy citizen, and there heard from the lips of that 
master of language some of those rhetorical displays for which he 
was famed. With the poet Euripides, indeed, the disciple also 
of Anaxagoras and Prodicus, and who was his senior only by a few 
years, he appears to have lived in habits of intimacy. With 
Euripides he would probably often have discussed those ethical 
topics which the poet so greatly delighted to transfuse into his 
tragic scenes, and associate with the interest of dramatic inci- 
dent. They were, in fact, brother-labourers in the same cause, 
though in different ways. Eor whilst Euripides endeavoured to 
work a reformation of his countrymen, by didactic addresses 
insinuated through their feelings, amidst the interest of tragic 
story, Socrates appealed, at once, to their understandings, and 
amidst the business or pastime of real life. The envy of con- 
temporaries was prone to attribute the excellence of the poet in 
some of his dramatic efforts, to the aid of his philosopher-friend. 
The truth probably is, that the benefit of their intercourse was 
mutual ; that, whilst the poet's imagination was informed and 
chastened by the shrewd and severe wisdom of the philosopher, 
the philosopher also, ever intent on his calling, would enlarge 
his mind with riches drawn from the genius, and taste, and 
learning of the poet. 

The Sophists had their counterparts in the female sex, in 
those persons, known as 'Era/>a/, "female associates or compa- 
nions," under the flimsy veil of a name which popular favour 
threw over their vice, — strangers visiting Athens from all parts 
of the Grecian world, — themselves the natural offspring, like the 
fabled harvest of the serpent's teeth, of those evil seeds, which 
the unprincipled and immoral teachings of the Sophists had 
scattered on the soil. Allusion has been made to individuals 
of that class as attendants on the teaching of Plato. Their 



HIS EDUCATION. 313 

appearance, however, at Athens is of much earlier date. We 
have an account from the pen of Xenophon of the visit of 
Socrates to the house of one of these, by name Theodota ; who 
is described as so beautiful, that painters resorted to her, to study 
as in a model of beauty, those graces of form by which she was 
distinguished, and represent them in their pictures. Socrates, 
on visiting her at her house, found her standing before a 
painter for that purpose, sumptuously adorned, with a number 
of female attendants around her, also richly attired, and every- 
thing about her in a corresponding style of elegance. He enters 
into familiar conversation with her ; fully recognizing her 
position as one subsisting on the revenues accruing from a 
life of profligacy. He gives her friendly counsel as to the way 
of making friends ; and, in reply to her invitation to repeat 
his visit, excuses himself on the plea of want of leisure ; 
adding, that he has a charm which draws persons around 
him, — mentioning some of his known disciples, — and, in his 
eagerness to influence all classes and all sorts of persons, offer- 
ing to receive her too, if she would come ; and when she 
readily engages to do so, suddenly taking leave of her, saying, 
in his jesting way, "that he would admit her, provided there 
should be no other dearer one visiting him at the time." With 
the celebrated Aspasia, the heroine of her class, as she may 
be called, when we look to her public station as the intimate of 
Pericles, and her commanding influence over him, and her cele- 
brity for beauty and talent, the name of Socrates is still more 
familiarly associated. Though Aspasia must have been rather 
a learner from him, than he from her ; we find him acknow- 
ledging himself as indebted to her for instruction in Ehetoric in 
particular. In conversing with Menexenus, an aspirant to the 
honour of being elected a member of the Athenian Council, he 
tells him, that it was no wonder that he should be himself able 
to speak ; as he had had no indifferent teacher in the art, namely, 
Aspasia, — " she who had made many good orators, and among 
them one especially, Pericles, the son of Xanthippus." 1 He 
1 Plato, Menex. p. 277. 



314 SOCKATES. 

goes on, indeed, to say that Aspasia had even composed that 
celebrated funeral oration which was pronounced by Pericles 
over the slain, at the end of the first year of the Peloponnesian 
war. We must evidently, however, regard this assertion rather 
as a testimony to the great celebrity enjoyed by Aspasia, — 
perhaps only the repetition of a popular rumour, invidiously 
attributing to her even the eloquence of the great man him- 
self, as if he did nothing apart from her, and could not 
even speak but by her dictation. In estimating, too, the 
weight of this assertion, we must make allowance for the 
habitual irony of Socrates ; in the indulgence of which, he 
sometimes makes a statement having the appearance of a 
matter of fact, when it is only thrown out humorously, and must 
be interpreted with reference to the person addressed and the 
purpose in view. 1 

Great indeed must have been the curiosity excited by 
Aspasia in the character of a teacher at Athens ; when, not 
only philosophers, and young men, studying to fit themselves 
for taking part in the affairs of the state, attended on her, but 
even women, — though it does not appear that these were of the 
families of Athenian citizens, — might be observed, under the 
escort of their friends, in the throng of admiring listeners gathered 
around her. 2 

Instruction in Music formed an important part of Athenian 
education. Socrates, it seems, did not neglect the opportunities 
which the presence of the great masters of the art in Athens 

1 The conclusion of the dialogue the oration?" " I am very thankful for 

shews, that the statement here is not this oration, Socrates," replies Menex- 

to be taken as literal truth; when So- enus, "to her, or to him, whoever it was, 

crates, replying to the surprize of Menex- that told it to you, and 1 am very thank- 

enus that Aspasia, a woman, could com- ful to him before others who has told it 

pose such orations, says, " then, if you tome." "Well," says Socrates, "but do 

do not believe me, follow along with me, not tell upon me ; that I may hereafter 

and you shall yourself hear her;" to report to you many and fine political 

which Menexenus again observes, " that orations from her." 
he had often conversed with Aspasia, A comparison of the two orations, that 

and knew what she was ; " "why then, in Plato and that in Thucydides, will 

do you not admire her," subjoins So- be a sufficient disproof of the assertion, 
crates, " and be thankful to her now for 2 Plutarch, in Vit. Pericl. 



HIS EDUCATION. 315 

afforded him of learning its principles. Damon, a celebrated 
musician, though not more eminent in the science which he pro- 
fessed, than as a politician and sophist, was resident at Athens 
during part of the administration of Pericles, an intimate and 
counsellor of that great statesman, as well as his instructor in 
Music. 1 From him, we are told, Socrates received instruction in 
the art. He is also described as having learned to play on 
the harp, even in his advanced age, from Connus, a person 
well-known 2 for his skill on that instrument. By these 
accounts, however, we may understand, not that he became a 
proficient in the musical art, but that he had attended on 
the most skilled professors of it, and studied under them, so far 
as Music entered into the general pursuit of Philosophy ; and 
formed a part of the general education of the accomplished 
Athenian at that time. 

It should be observed, indeed, that though Socrates strongly 
discouraged the presumption of knowledge in all with whom 
he conversed, he did not disapprove of the acquisition of 
particular kinds of knowledge. He communicated whatever he 
knew to every one that came in his way; and where he was 
himself unacquainted with any subject, he referred his hearers to 
those who possessed the information. He was not in fact opposed 
to knowledge in itself. He was glad to embrace it wherever it 
could be found. But he was an enemy to the substitution of 
mere intellectual acquisitions, — and those often superficial and 
unreal, — for education of the mind and character. He felt, and 
justly felt, that knowledge by itself was vanity. The tendency 
of the age was to ascribe value exclusively to mental acuteness 
and dexterity. Ingenuity and cleverness obtained the merit 
and the prize of wisdom. His labour was to draw his country- 
men from thinking too highly of their boasted knowledge. He 
wished them to see how greatly they overrated intellectual 
accomplishments, — how much they had yet to learn if they 
would be real proficients in wisdom. 

Socrates indeed appears to have regarded Philosophy in the 

1 Plutarch in Pericl. 2 Xeriophon, Mem. ii. 6. Plato, Menex. p. 235. 



316 SOCRATES. 

light of a sacred mission, rv\v rov SsoD \argeiav, to which he was 
specially called, rather than of a study and exercise of the mind. 
This notion of philosophy had already been exemplified by 
Pythagoras and his followers. But they had realized it by 
forming themselves into distinct communities or colleges ; 
separating themselves from the world around, by a solemn 
initiation, and the practice of an ascetic discipline. Socrates, 
however, had no thought of changing the outward form of 
society. He did not propose, like Pythagoras, to institute 
a refuge from the pollutions and misery of the world, or to 
educate a peculiar brotherhood, who should afterwards act on 
the social mass. He did not address himself to the few. His 
school was all Athens, or rather indeed all Greece. Leaving 
society as it was, he sought to infuse a new spirit into it, by 
carrying his philosophy into every department of it. He therefore 
went about among all classes of people, preferring none, despising 
none, but adapting his instructions to every variety of condition 
and character. Thus did he in truth, according to the observa- 
tion commonly applied to him from the time of Cicero, bring 
down philosophy from heaven to earth ; but not so much by 
being the first to give a moral tone to philosophy, as by the 
universality and philanthropy of his teaching. His distinguish- 
ing merit is, that by his freedom from all pretentiousness, and by 
his simplicity, he humanized philosophy. 1 Philosophy in his 
hands was no longer an exclusive and privileged profession. It 
no longer spoke as from an oracular shrine, and in the language of 
mystery. It now conversed with every man at his own home, — 
submitted to be familiarly approached and viewed without 
reserve, — and, instead of waiting to be formally consulted by its 
votaries only, volunteered to mingle in the business, and interests, 
and pleasures of every-day life. 

His manner of life and of teaching is thus described by 
Xenophon. 2 

1 Plutarch, De Socrat. Genio, p. 582 B, 2 Mem. i. 1; also Plutarch, Utrum 

'Av5pbs &Tv<pLa Kal acpekelq, fidXia-ra drj seni gerend. Resp. 
<pikoGO<piav e^av^-pwirlaavTos. 



HIS LIFE AND TEACHING. 317 

" He was constantly in public. For early in the morning he 
would go to the walks and the gymnasia ; and when the agora 
was full, he was to be seen there; and constantly during the 
remainder of the day, he would be wherever he was likely to 
meet with the most persons ; and for the most part he would 
talk, and all that would might hear him." 

The nature of his conversations is thus further reported by 
the same faithful authority : 

u Ko one ever saw Socrates doing, or heard him saying, any 
thing impious or profane. For not only did he not discourse 
about the nature of all things, as most others, inquiring how, 
what by the Sophists is called the Universe, consists, and by 
what laws each heavenly thing is produced ; but he would point 
out the foliy of those who studied such matters. And the first 
inquiry he would make of them was, whether they proceeded to 
such studies from thinking themselves already sufficiently 
acquainted with human tilings ; or whether they thought they 
were acting becomingly in passing by human things, and giving 
their attention to the divine. He would wonder, too, it was not 
evident to them, that it was not possible for men to find out 
these matters ; since even those who most prided themselves on 
discoursing of them, did not agree in opinion with each other, 
but were affected like madmen in relation to one another. For 
of madmen, whilst some did not fear even what were objects of 
fear, others were afraid of things that were not to be feared ; 
whilst some were not ashamed to say or do any thing even 
before the multitude, others objected even to going out into the 
world ; whilst some paid no honour to sacred tilings, or altars, or 
any other religious object, others worshipped even stones, and 
common stocks, and brutes. So of those who speculated on the 
nature of all things, whilst some thought that Being was one 
only, others thought it was infinite in number; whilst some 
thought that all things were in perpetual motion, others thought 
it impossible for any thing to be moved; whilst some thought 
that all things were in a course of generation and destruction, 
others thought that nothing could possibly be generated or 



318 SOCRATES. 

destroyed. He would further consider respecting them thus: 
whether, as the learners of human things think they shall be 
able to make practical use of their knowledge for themselves 
and any one else at pleasure, so also the searchers into the divine 
things hold, that having ascertained by what laws each thing 
is generated, they shall be able to produce at pleasure, winds, 
and waters, and seasons, and whatever else of the kind they may 
want ; or whether they have no such expectation, but it suffices 
them only to know how every thing of this kind is generated. 
Such, then, was his manner of speaking about those who busied 
themselves with these matters. — But, for his part, he was ever 
discoursing about human things ; inquiring what was pious, what 
impious, what honourable, what base, what just, what unjust, 
what sobriety, what madness, what courage, what cowardice, 
what a state, what a statesman, what a government of men, 
what the character of a governor; and about other subjects, 
which, by being known, he thought, would make men honour- 
able and virtuous, whilst those ignorant of them would justly 
be called slavish." 

Xenophon has thus fully touched the character of the teach- 
ing of Socrates in its leading points, and the nature of his con- 
stant occupation at Athens. The intermissions of military 
service appear to have been the only occasions of any variation 
in this uniform course of life. No other country had any 
charms for him, as no other afforded such rich opportunities 
of conversing with men, and studying human nature. 1 His 
activity was essentially different from that either of his pre- 
decessors or successors in the path of philosophy. They travelled 
from place to place searching for knowledge, storing their minds 
with various observations, and making philosophy their formal 
business. Socrates, as he had no stated school or place of 
audience, so he had no design of framing any system of philo- 



1 Plato, Laches, 187. Otf p.oi doKe?s verb TovTovirepiaybp.evovT<$\byo?, irplv &v 

elbevai 'on 6s dv eyyvrara liiotcpdrovs 17 ejxirecrr) eh to 5i.56vai irepl avrov \6yov, 

\6yu, ibenrep yevei, Kai 7r\r]<nd^rj dcaXeyb- hvrivd rpoirou vvv re £rj, nai tivriva rbv 

fxevos, dvdyKrj avrto .... ^.77 iraveaOai. Trape\rj\vdbra fiiov fte(3iu)Kev, k. t. X. 



HIS LIFE AND TEACHING. 319 

sophy, or of enlarging the researches and discoveries of former 
philosophers, or of pursuing knowledge as an ultimate object. 
He regarded himself simply, as called by the voice of Deity to 
undertake the reformation of men, and especially of his fellow- 
citizens, as his proper sphere of duty, from their corruptions 
of sentiment and conduct. He stood, therefore, by the great 
stream of human life which was ever flowing at Athens, and 
watched its course. He is said once to have visited Samos in 
company with Archelaus, the disciple of Anaxagoras, and also 
to have gone to the Pythian and the Isthmian games. With 
these exceptions, and those of the occasions of military service 
abroad, he appears to have constantly remained at home, 
unattracted from the town, the seat of his philosophic mission, 
by invitations even to the courts of princes. In vain did Scopas 
of Cranon, and Eurylochus of Larissa, offer him money, and 
invite him to visit them. 1 He could refuse also the hospitality 
of Archelaus, king of Macedonia, the same with whom the poet 
Euripides found a kind and honourable refuge in his old age, 
from the envy of his countrymen, and domestic grievance. His 
refusal of the invitation of Archelaus is said indeed to have 
been accompanied with the declaration of his feeling, that he 
could not brook the acceptance of a favour which it was entirely 
out of his power to return. 2 Nay, so entirely engrossed was he 
in the work to which he had devoted himself, that he was a 
stranger, as Plato represents him, even to the immediate neigh- 
bourhood of the city. The banks of the Ilyssus, even then 
classic ground, rich with legendary associations, could not seduce 
him from the agora and the crowd ; so that he seemed scarcely 
at home anywhere beyond the walls of Athens. 3 

Kb Athenian, however, could decline the military service of 
the state. And this service, at the time of Socrates, often 

1 Diog. Laert. in vit. relxovs 'ipioiye doners roirapaTrav e&e'vai. 

2 Arist. llket. ii. 23. XQ. 'ZvyylyvwaK.e dr) p.01, Sj dptare, <f>iXo- 

3 Plato, Phcedr. 230. 2i> U ye, Si p.adr]s yap elpu- ra jxev odv %wpta Kal ra 
Oav/udcne, droTJirards tis (paiuet.' drexvCos devdpa ovdev /xi diXec diSdo-Keii>, 61 5' eu r<p 
ydp, 8 A^yeis, ^evayovfiivq) tlvI Kal ovk darei ixvQpwiroi. P. 287 ; also Crito, p. 
iirixwpiip (zOiKar ovtws e/c rod dareos oiir' 120. Meno. p. 348. 

ets tt]v virepopiav dirodvp-eTs, of/V ^w 



320 SOCRATES. 

engaged the citizen in hazardous enterprizes and long absences 
far from his home. The first occasion on which Socrates is 
related to have served, was in the Chersonese at Potidsea, just 
before the opening of the Peloponnesian war. The service in 
which the Athenian soldiers were engaged here was one of great 
hardship. It was in the winter season, and the climate in those 
parts was most severe. Amongst those who distinguished them- 
selves by their resoluteness and gallantry, none was so conspicu- 
ous as the philosopher. Whilst others were clothing themselves 
with additional garments, and wrapping their feet in wool, he 
was observed in his usual dress, and walking barefoot on the ice, 
with more ease, than others with their shoes. Nor even amidst 
these circumstances, did he merge the character of the philo- 
sopher in that of the soldier. He was seen one morning at sun- 
rise fixed in contemplation. At noon he was in the same 
position, and still in the evening, and so continued through the 
night, until the sun-rise of the following day. Such, too, was 
his bravery in the engagement at Potidsea, that he earned for 
himself the prize of distinction, but readily sacrificed his claim 
to the wishes of the generals, in favour of a more illustrious 
candidate in the person of Alcibiades. Alcibiades himself 
would have refused the honour as due rather to Socrates ; 
for to the unwillingness of Socrates to leave him wounded on 
the field, he had been even indebted for his own life, and the pre- 
servation of his arms, after the battle. But the philosopher, 
with a true magnanimity, insisted on the award of the generals. 1 
The next occasion of military service, in which he was 
scarcely less distinguished than at Potidaea, was in the eighth 
year of the Peloponnesian war, at the battle of Delium in 
Bceotia. The battle was an unsuccessful one to the Athenians, 
and they were forced to retreat in disorder. Alcibiades was also 
present on this occasion, and overtook, on the way, Socrates, in 
company with Laches, one of the generals. He was on horseback, 
and comparatively therefore out of danger, whilst they were on 
foot. 2 He had opportunity, therefore, of admiring the presence 

1 Plato, Sympos. 269. - Ibid. Laches, 165. 



HIS LIFE AND TEACHING. 321 

of mind which Socrates displayed on the occasion, even beyond 
Laches, and the steadiness and vigilance with which he kept 
the enemy from pressing upon them, and so secured their 
retreat. 1 

These incidents seem to rest on indisputable evidence. The 
form in which they are introduced, related as they are by a 
professed eye-witness, and that witness Alcibiacles, the person, 
next to Socrates himself, most interested in them, may justly 
be regarded as giving a sanction to their history, independently 
of any fictitious circumstances added in the way of embellish- 
ment to the Dialogue. 

The third occasion on which Socrates served as a soldier was 
again in Thrace, at Amphipolis, 2 in the same year as that of the 
unfortunate expedition to Delium. No particulars are mentioned 
of this adventure. But the fact itself is sufficiently attested. 
Nor, though it follows immediately on the affair of Delium, is it 
improbable on that account. For at this busy period of the 
war, when the Athenians were making demonstrations of their 
power, by the presence of their forces in different places at 
once ; and when Brasidas was pushing his successes against 
them in Thrace ; no individual of the military age (and Socrates 
was not more than about forty-five years of age at this time), 
would enjoy any long interval of relaxation from foreign 
service. 

With these exceptions, Socrates appears to have constantly 
resided at his home at Athens. All this time, throughout his 
whole life indeed, he lived in great poverty, content with the 

1 Plato, Sympos. p. 270. The story 55), doubt is thrown on these accounts 

is again alluded to by Plato, in the of the military service of Socrates ; 

dialogue Laches. Laches there says, and instances are given of the his- 

that he had experience of the actions torical inaccuracy of Plato. The ob- 

of Socrates, and reminds him of the jections, however, as there given, are 

day of their common danger, $ /*er' ifxov evidently thrown oat in the way of 

<rvv5ieiaj>dvi>evcras, k. t. \. p. 182. Laer- discussion, and not with perfect seri- 

tius says (in. vit. Soc. ii. 5-7), that ousness, as if the speaker really-thought 

Socrates rescued Xenophon, who had them of weight. 

fallen from his horse in the battle of 2 Plato, Apolog. 28. c. p. 67. Diog. 

Delium, by carrying him off the field. Laert. in vit. iElian, Var. Hist. iii. 

In the Deipnosophists of Atheiucus (v. 17. 



322 SOCRATES 

least that might suffice for mere sustenance and clothing from 
day to day. 

Yet it was no artificial, and melancholy, and fanatical life 
that he led. He accustomed himself to strict moderation, not 
with any view to the mortification of the body, or as thinking 
that abstinence was in itself a virtue, but in order to self-com- 
mand ; by rendering himself as independent as possible of the 
circumstances of the body, to disencumber the soul of every 
burthen and obstruction to its free operation. There was nothing, 
indeed, of austerity in his life or manner. He might be seen 
walking barefoot, but it was not for the pain that it might inflict. 
It was only that he might bear cold and privations of every 
kind the better, and suffer less inconvenience when exposed 
to necessary hardships, and require less for his ordinary sub- 
sistence. So far was he from studying a discipline of bodily 
severity for its own sake, that he was observed at times 
mingling in the social festivities of his fellow-citizens with the 
full freedom of Athenian conviviality, and shewing that he 
could bear excesses which mastered others, without losing his 
self-command. 1 

Both Plato and Xenophon have presented to us a picture of 
him, under this especial point of view. Each has sketched a 
symposium, or drinking party, at Athens, in which Socrates 
appears as the principal figure, bearing his part in the festal 
mirth of the occasion, and, at the same time, giving an instruc- 
tive turn to the conversation. In the symposium of Xenophon, 
the party are assembled at the house of Callias in the Piraeus, 
the well-known resort of the Sophists, in honour of the victory 
of the youth Autolycus in the contest of the pancratium, at the 
great Panathensea : in that of Plato, the occasion is of a similar 
character, at the house of the youthful poet, Agatho, in celebra- 
tion of his Tragic victory of the previous day, at the Lenrea. 

In the former, the entertainment of the evening is described 
as enlivened by a professional jester, who appears among the 
guests without invitation, and by the performances of a paid 

1 zElian. Var. Hist. iv. 11. 



HIS LIFE AND TEACHING. 323 

exhibitor accompanied by a girl playing the flute, another a 
dancer, and a boy playing the harp; who, at intervals, amuse 
the company by singing, and by feats of skill and agility, 
and sleight-of-hand tricks ; and, at the end, delight them by 
a stage -representation of a love -scene between Bacchus and 
Ariadne. 

In the latter, a minstrel-girl is introduced ; but it is only to 
be immediately dismissed ; Agatho and his guests determin- 
ing, that, as the previous day had been one of profuse drinking, 
this should be one of liberty to each to drink only as he pleased, 
and that on the present occasion they should engage in some 
intellectual pastime among themselves. A subject of discussion, 
accordingly, is proposed — the encomium of Love — on which 
each is to display in turn his power of description. It comes 
last to the turn of Socrates to speak ; and it is to him that Plato 
reserves the expression of the judgment of his philosophy on the 
subject. All that is said by the previous speakers, (though the 
masterly hand of Plato is evident in their speeches, in working 
them up for effect, and marking out any peculiarities in the 
individuals, with strong touches of his own satirical humour, 
(especially in those of Agatho and Aristophanes), is but the 
clearing of the ground, and the prelude to the exposition which 
Socrates proceeds to deliver, of the nature of Love. Avoiding, 
as was his constant practice, all didactic statement, Socrates 
professes only to repeat a conversation which he had held 
on some occasion with " the Mantinean stranger," Diotime, one, 
evidently, of the notorious class of female visitors of Athens. As 
the account which he is about to give of the affection of Love, 
would doubtless sound somewhat mystical and strange in their 
ears, he prefaces it with the mention of her fame for skill in the 
art of divination. 1 He tells them, how, by a series of questions, 
she had brought him to a sense of his ignorance on the subject, 
and taught him, that Love had not for its true object, the 

1 Such was her skill in this respect, Athenians at her suggestion, she had 
he says (Sympos. p. 227), that in conse- occasioned a delay of the visitation of 
quence of a sacrifice performed hy the the plague for ten years before the war. 



324 SOCRATES. 

gratification of this or that particular desire, but only " the good," 
with the possession of that good for ever ; how he had further 
learned from her, that all that effort of Love which was observed 
in the world, was a seeking, to the utmost, an immortality of 
being and of happiness ; that which in itself is mortal, thus pre- 
serving its identity, and realizing its immortal existence by 
successive renovations of self ; just as personal identity remains, 
whilst changes are constantly proceeding in the mind and body of 
the individual. Whilst (as she explained to him further, he said) 
this effort manifested itself in various ways in the world, — in 
some, in sensual indulgence ; in some, in the love and care of 
their offspring ; in some, in the pursuit of fame ; in some again, 
in works of intellect, or in labours for the benefit of men, by 
implanting in other minds the principles of knowledge and 
virtue, — it could never obtain its full gratification in the present 
condition of being ; but must go on, striving still, from lower 
to higher ground, — step by step, — becoming larger and more 
general in its aim, — until at length it realizes to itself the 
bright vision of the intrinsically beautiful and divine. 

The setting forth, however, of this mystical and sublime 
theory of Love, connecting it with his philosophy of the Divine 
Ideas, was not all that Plato contemplated in bringing Socrates 
before us in his symposium. He evidently designed further 
to vindicate the character of Socrates from the imputation 
of corrupting the young, by introducing both Aristophanes, 
by whom the charge had obtained a public expression in his 
play of the Clouds, and Alcibiades, to whom that charge especi- 
ally pointed, in friendly intercourse with him on this occasion. 
Aristophanes, as one of the company, had, in his turn, spoken in 
the praise of Love. And he was about to reply to some observa- 
tion of Socrates alluding to him, when suddenly a loud knocking 
is heard at the door of the court ; and Alcibiades makes his 
appearance in a drunken frolic, followed by a party of noisy 
revellers, such as appear very commonly to have infested the 
streets of Athens at night. Being invited to take his part in 
celebrating the praise of Love, he affects to be jealous of the 



HIS LIFE AND TEACHING. 325 

attention of Socrates to Agatho, and peremptorily refuses to 
praise any one but Socrates himself. He sets out, accordingly, 
with a humorous strain of encomium, imitating the ironical 
manner of Socrates, holding up to ridicule the peculiarities 
of the person of Socrates ; even quoting some words from 
the Clouds, expressive of his manner of solemnly moving 
his body and glaring with the eyes ; then making a sudden 
transition from this topic, going on to declare his admiration 
of the great virtues of Socrates, of the influence which he had 
with all whom he addressed ; how Socrates had saved him in 
the war from the hands of the enemy; how he had not only 
shewn himself brave in the hour of danger, but also no less firm 
and invincible under temptations to licentious and criminal 
indulgence ; how, in all their intercourse, his conduct towards 
him had ever been no other than that of a father towards a son. 1 
One account, but not a very credible one, as it rests on the 
authority of Aristoxenus, an invidious writer, states that Socrates 
was supported by the alms of friends, contributed from time 
to time for his relief. With his very limited wants, and his 
ready access to the house of Crito and other liberal patrons of 
philosophy at Athens, he would not have to depend on this 
precarious charity. The pittance which sufficed for the humblest 
citizen would suffice for him. He is said to have inherited a 
patrimony of seventy or eighty minse. 2 But this sum, it is 

1 The Tragic victory of Agatho, oc- the two authors had previously seen the 

curring at the festival of the Lensea, in work of the other. 

b.c. 416, and the first exhibition of the 2 About £400 of our money. Plu- 

Clouds being in b.c. 423 ; there would tarch (in his life of Aristides) finds fault 

be sufficient time in the interval be- with Demetrius Phalereus for having en- 

tween the exhibition, and the occasion of deavoured to remove the imputation of 

the symposium in Plato, for passages in poverty from Socrates, by stating that 

the Clouds to have become current in Socrates had land of his own and seventy 

the mouths of people. minse put out to interest by Crito. 

Allusion is also made in Xeno- The idea of his extreme indigence ori- 

phon's symposium, to the frivolous ginated probably with the caricatures of 

questions which Socrates is made to his profession of poverty by the comic 

ask in the Clouds. poets ; and, true as it was substantially, 

Notwithstanding the entire difference was afterwards, it seems, maintained by 

of style in the two dialogues, they his friends and admirers, as the evidence 

resemble each other in so many points, of the consistency of his life with his 

that one is apt to suppose, that one of avowed contempt for worldly possessions. 



326 SOCRATES. 

added, he lost (though the time is not stated when the loss 
occurred) by the failure of the person with whom it had been 
placed at interest. He possessed also a house in Athens ; and 
he was able, however scantily, to support a family. So that we 
cannot suppose he was absolutely destitute of all resources of 
subsistence. He appears then rather to have voluntarily 
renounced every kind of worldly possession, so far as his own 
personal comfort was concerned, than to have been absolutely 
reduced to want by the pressure of circumstances. Poverty, in 
fact, was his profession, and not the mere necessity of his case. 
If he prided himself in any thing, it was in his avowal of his 
contempt for riches, and disregard of domestic interests and 
comforts, in contrast with the general habits of an age of selfish 
activity and profusion. The means of enriching himself, at least 
of extricating himself from want, were often placed in his power, 
and he as often rejected them. Alcibiades offered him land on 
which he might build a house, but he refused it pointedly, 
observing, "Had I wanted shoes, would you have offered me 
leather to make shoes for myself? — and ridiculous should I have 
been in taking it." Charmides would have given him slaves, as 
a source of revenue by their labour. This offer also he refused. 1 
In the same spirit, he would often cast a look at the number of 
things that were sold, and say to himself, " Of how many things 
I have no need!" 2 Thus was his whole plan of life studiously 
opposed to the acceptance of any provision for his comfort or 
ease. It was a service of the Deity in which he felt himself 
engaged, and, in the prosecution of that, solemnly devoted to a 
course of hardy poverty. 3 

In the domestic relations of life, he lived an Athenian among 
Athenians. He differed from other heads of families at Athens 
in this respect, that in his dedication of himself to his philosophic 
mission, he took no thought about the management of his private 
affairs. His home was abroad ; his household the people of 
Athens. Still he discharged the duties of a husband, and the 

1 Diog. Laert. in vit. 5 Plato, Apolog. p. 5. 'AW iv irevlq. 

2 3 bid. fxvplg. el/nl 5ia ttjv rod deov Xarpeiap. 



HIS LIFE AND TEACHING. 327 

father of a family ; and that under trying circumstances, unless 
the proverbial severity of temper of his wife Xanthippe be 
esteemed an idle scandal of the day. ISTo Athenian, indeed, was 
truly domestic, in the sense of making his home the scene of 
his highest interest and enjoyment. Nor was Socrates domestic 
in this sense. Still less was he so than other Athenians ; inas- 
much as his very profession of life was a call from the bosom of 
his family. But in the midst of these avocations from his imme- 
diate home, and the vexations to which he was subjected there, 
he was not estranged from the ties of domestic affection. Xeno- 
phon has recorded a simple and touching trait of the character 
of Socrates under this particular point of view — a trait the more 
interesting, as almost everything else that we know of the philo- 
sopher is drawn from his life in public. It occurs in the course 
of a conversation between Socrates and his son Lamprocles, who 
had complained of the insufferable temper of his mother Xan- 
thippe. " What," said he to the youth, " do you think it more 
annoying to you to hear what she says, than it is to the actors, 
when in the tragedies they say every, thing bad of one another?" 
" But they, I conceive," replied the son, " bear it easily, because 
they do not suppose that the speaker, in contradicting them, 
intends to hurt them, or that in threatening, he intends to do 
them any ill." " Then are you," resumed Socrates, " vexed, when 
you well know that what your mother says to you, she says, not 
only intending no evil, but even wishing more good to you than 
to any one else ; or do you regard your mother as unkindly 
affected towards you?" Lamprocles, disclaiming this latter 
supposition ; " Do you then," he added, " say of her, who is both 
kind to you, and takes every possible care of you when you are 
sick, that you may recover, and want nothing proper for you, 
and who, moreover, prays to the gods in your behalf for many a 
good, arid pays vows, — that she is vexatious ? For my part, I 
think, if you cannot bear such a mother, you cannot bear what is 
good for you" 1 

From the description given by Plato of the family of Socrates 

1 Xcnopb. Mem. ii. 2. 



328 SOCRATES. 

in the prison-scene, it would appear that Socrates had two other 
children then living besides Lamprocles — the eldest; 1 one of 
them quite a child, at the time of their father's death. 2 We 
learn from other authorities, 3 that the two younger children 
were named Sophroniscus and Menexenus ; but these are said 
to have been the children, not of Xanthippe, but of another 
wife, Myrto, the grand-daughter of Aristides, surnamed the 
Just. 4 To account for this, it has been stated, that after their 
disasters in Sicily, the Athenians made a decree authorizing 
double marriages, with the view of recruiting their exhausted 
population. But this statement does not appear to be borne out 
by the earlier authorities on the subject of Athenian legislation. 
Nor is it probable that a law should have been enacted, directly 
sanctioning a form of polygamy. It appears, that during the 
pressure and confusion of the Peloponnesian war, persons 
obtained the freedom of the city of Athens whose title was 
objectionable on the constitutional ground of their not being 
born of citizen-parents on both sides. Thus had Pericles, after 
the death of his two legitimate sons, obtained the admission of 
his son, Pericles, by Aspasia, to the privilege of citizenship; 5 
though he had himself carried, some time before, a law of strict 
limitation, under which nearly four thousand were deprived of 
the franchise.** Such extension of the privilege to the offspring 
of illegal unions, possibly gave a pretext to the supposition, that 
a decree passed at Athens sanctioning bigamy. 

Some difficulty, however, arises on the subject of the mar- 
riage of Socrates, from the conflict of authorities. Whilst it is 
asserted, on the one hand, that he was married to Myrto and 
Xanthippe at the same time ; on the other hand, others assign 
them both as his wives, but in succession, and also differ as to 
the order of succession. But the silence of Plato and Xeno- 

1 Xenoplion, Mem. ii., 2, in the anec- 4 Diog. Laert. invit. 

dote referred to above, speaks of Lam- 6 The same who was among the 

procles as the eldest son, and of Xan- generals at the battle of Arginusa?, 

thippe as his mother. who were cruelly and iniquitously sacri- 

2 Plato, Phcedo, pp. 135, 262. ficed to party spirit after their great 

3 Aristotle, cited by Laertius in vit. victory. 

Socr. 6 Plutarch in rericl 



HIS LIFE AND TEACHING. 329 

phon respecting any other wife of Socrates but Xanthippe, and 
their coincidence in speaking of her only as the mother of his 
children, may be regarded as sufficiently decisive of the point 
against every subsequent authority. Indeed, the reference to 
Aristotle, given by Laertius, which is the chief ground for sup- 
posing that Socrates was married also to Myrto, is very question- 
able ; it is even doubtful whether the treatise to which Laertius 
appeals for the fact, is the genuine work of Aristotle. From the 
manner, too, in which the name of Myrto appears to have been 
introduced in the account, nothing more may have been intended, 
than that Socrates found her in a state of widowhood and dis- 
tress from poverty, and took care of her at his own home. 1 
Aristides belonged to the same tribe, and the same demus or 
borough, as Socrates ; and a reverence for the virtues of the 
grandfather, may have combined with these almost domestic 
ties, to call forth such an act of friendliness to the disconsolate 
Myrto. 2 And if this be the case, as is probable, it would only 
add an interesting instance of that liberal benevolence which 
characterized the whole conduct of Socrates. 3 

It is a confirmation of this conclusion, that all anecdotes of 
the private life of Socrates which appear at all credible, bring 
Xanthippe on the scene. On his inviting some wealthy persons 
to supper, it is Xanthippe who is distressed by their deficient 
means of hospitality, and to whom he replies, " Take courage ; 
if they are worthy people, they will be satisfied ; if they are 
worthless we shall care nothing about them." 4 It is Xanthippe 
whom he reproves for her particularity about her dress on the 
occasion of some public spectacle, as more desirous of " being 
seen than to see." It is of her again that Alcibiacles expressed 
his wonder how he could bear with her, when he simply but 
pointedly referred him to her just claims on his affection as the 

1 The poverty of the family of Aris- the story of the double marriage in hia 

tides appears from iElian, Var. Hist., observations on Socrates. The story is 

x. 15. also questioned by Athenseus, Deipno- 

3 Plato, Laches. soph., xiii. 2. 

3 Plutarch in Aristides. He adds, * Hiog. Laert. invit. 

that Panzetius had sufficiently refuted 5 iElian, Var. Hist., vii. 10. 



330 SOCRATES. 

mother of his children. 1 On another occasion his disciple, 
Antisthenes, is said to have asked him, with reference to Xan- 
thippe, why he did not study to improve the disposition of his 
wife, whose violence of temper (he observed) was unexampled in 
the history of domestic life. Instead of confirming the censo- 
rious remark, he turned it, according to his usual method, to a 
practical illustration of his philosophy. " If Xanthippe was 
hard to be controlled," was the tenor of his answer, " it was 
only a proper discipline to him for the management of men ; as 
those who would be masters in horsemanship, began with ma- 
naging the most spirited horse, after which every other would be 
tractable." 2 These stories, and the like, handed down or in- 
vented by the humour of the times, may be merely exaggerations 
of the fact of the inconvenience and dissatisfaction occasionally 
felt at the philosopher's home, by his habitual neglect of his 
domestic concerns, and the duty of exertion consequently im- 
posed on Xanthippe beyond Athenian women in general. She 
appears indeed to have tenderly loved her husband, if Plato has 
faithfully traced the picture of her visit to his prison, and her 
extreme anguish at that trying hour. And he also knew her 
value, if his affection may be judged of, as surely it may, by the 
kind and gentle considerateness of his manner in committing her 
to the care of his friends at parting, and his absolute reserve of 
his feelings on that occasion. 3 The picture, indeed, is drawn by 
the hand of a consummate master ; and Plato, it is true, was not 
present on the occasion. But we must believe, that in painting 
a scene that must have been impressed on the mind of the dis- 
ciples of the philosopher, above every other incident of his life, 
and of which persons then living must have retained a lively 
recollection, he took his outlines at least of these interesting par- 
ticulars from the real state of the case. 

But the allusion to these circumstances brings us prema- 
turely to the solemn tragedy which closed his intrepid and ener- 
getic career. We have yet to contemplate him pursuing for 
many a year his unwearied labour of awakening his countrymen 
1 Diog. Lacrt. in Vit. - Xenoph. Sympos., ii. 3 Plato, Phcedo, p. 135. 



HIS LIFE AND TEACHING. 331 

from their dreams of knowledge and happiness to the realities of 
their condition in the world. Great indeed must have been the 
address, which could recommend the severe and wholesome 
truths inculcated by him, to the hearing of the vain and volatile 
Athenians. To none is the practical application of a principle, 
so condemnatory of human folly and impertinence, as the maxim, 
" Know Thyself/' truly welcome. And yet this was the burthen 
of the teaching of Socrates for a series of years, among a people, 
whom it was far easier to please by praising to excess, than not 
to displease by censuring ever so slightly. They would listen, 
indeed, patiently, to general invectives on their public conduct, 
conveyed in the impassioned eloquence of their orators ; as per- 
sons will readily sympathize with general descriptions of the 
depravity of Human nature, or of whole classes of men. But all 
are apt to recoil from the pain of direct self-application of the 
truth ; and Athenians, especially, regarded with invidiousness 
every attempt to impart to them moral instruction. Every 
Athenian, they thought, was capable of communicating this kind 
of knowledge, at least every educated Athenian, every indivi- 
dual of the higher order of citizens. 1 They wanted no one to 
teach them Virtue. Hence the allusion made on so many occa- 
sions by Socrates to the question, whether virtue could be taught 
or not. When the Sophists made this a part of their profession, 
it was as an external accomplishment or art, and not as a disci- 
pline of life, that it entered into their system of education. 2 
Socrates uprooted this vain notion. He laboured to impress 
on the Athenians, that so far from these popular teachers 
being able to impart instruction in Virtue, there were none 
who really knew what Virtue was. They had yet to learn 
themselves, — to become acquainted with their own minds, their 
own character intellectually and morally, in order to that pur- 

1 Xenoph. Mem.* iv. 2. 24. ~Kar£- yap av d\\o n ^Seiv, e'iye ^5' ifxavrbu 

fiades obv irpbs ry vat$ irov yeypa/uL/xfrou iyiyvcoaKov, k.t.X. 

rb Yvwdt cavTov, "EYarye. Ubrepov odv 2 Isocrates speaks of them as avp.Tra- 

ovdev col rod ypdp./xaros ep.i\rjcrev, ^ irpoo-- o~av apeTr]v Kal evdaipioviav 7rwAowres, and 

eVxes re Kal e7rexet'/)?7<ras ffavrbv iwiaKO- again, as tt)V evdaipioulav irapa5id6vra.s. 

ireiv 6(ttls d-qs ; Md At', ou drjra tyr). Kal Contra Soph. 3, 4. 
yap drj trdvv tovtS ye (p/xrju et'SeWi" o"X°^?7 



332 SOCRATES. 

pose. This, then, was his great difficulty. It was not the diffi- 
culty of communicating new knowledge, but that of leading men 
to unlearn their presumptions and conceits, and to feel the 
necessity of real moral instruction. That he should have suc- 
ceeded then in any degree in such an attempt, — -that he should 
have been able to carry on the effort for so many years, in the 
very centre of Greek civilization, — that, proceeding on so broad 
and fundamental a principle of reformation, presenting no defi- 
nite system on which a sect might fasten, no specific lure to the 
zeal of party, he should have drawn around him so many fol- 
lowers and admirers — this is the extraordinary effect in the case 
of Socrates, which shews the powerful charm of his address. 
To persons offering any particular instruction, or professing to 
qualify them for the office of ststesmen and orators, the Athe- 
nians were most ready to attend ; and many doubtless did attend 
to the conversations of Socrates with this view. They could not 
but admire the skill which he displayed in arguing with every 
one that came in his way ; not with the vulgar only, but with 
those who had the highest reputation for talent in reasoning, 
and for the extent of their knowledge. They saw his superiority 
to the Sophists, on the very ground on which the Sophists set 
up their pretensions. Many, accordingly, flocked to him as the 
best master in political science and dialectical skill, particularly 
as he was always accessible, and his instructions were perfectly 
gratuitous. Some, too, of a better nature than the rest, were 
won by the honest and manly purpose which shone through his 
teaching and manner on all occasions, whatever disguise of 
irony, or humour, or sophistry, he might assume. There were 
even some of the young men, whose habits of life were reproved, 
and principles condemned, by his searching interrogatories, but 
who yet were won to attention by the charm of his instruction, 
and patiently heard from him truths which they would not have 
listened to from any other lips. For who else could stay, even 
for a moment, the wild impetuosity of Alcibiades, or the fero- 
cious arrogance of Critias % Their motives in resorting to Socrates 
were chiefly selfish and political. It was in pursuit of their 



HIS LIFE AND TEACHING. 333 

schemes of ambition that they sought his society. Still he was 
able to retain them for a time at least, though they found his 
instructions very different from what they calculated on receiv- 
ing ; and so long as they continued to associate with him, they 
exercised a degree of self-restraint which strikingly contrasted 
with the habitual profligacy of their lives. 1 

Much as we must allow for the humour and the extrava- 
gance of what is said in the person of Alcibiades in Plato's 
symposium, where he is represented as speaking under the 
excitement of wine and revelry, and for the amusement of the 
company amongst whom he has suddenly presented himself, 
rather than for any serious purpose, we may yet believe the sub- 
stantial truth of what he attributes to the influence of Socrates 
over him, when he tells them how the words of Socrates affected 
him ; how his heart had beaten, and the tears had gushed from 
his eyes, at the reproofs of Socrates ; how he, whom no one 
would believe ever to have felt shame before any one, was yet 
ashamed before him, and constrained to own his fault in neglect- 
ing himself, amidst all his officious concern about the affairs of 
the state. Whilst he excites a laugh around him by pointing 
out the peculiarities of the person of Socrates, comparing him to 
the sculptured figures of the Sileni and the Mercuries in the 
streets of Athens, he yet owns the power of the spell by which 
he was held in the presence of Socrates, as persons were said to 
be by the flute of the satyr Marsyas. Nor was he the only per- 
son who felt this charm : he adds, For that there was no one, 
woman, or man, or boy, that might hear him, or even his words 
repeated by a very indifferent speaker, but was taken by surprise 
and rivetted in attention. 2 

This comparison of him to the Sileni, and, in particular, to 
the satyr Marsyas, was also true in more respects than that of 
the enchantment of his conversation. His countenance, strongly 
marked by that arch intelligence, which half-concealed, half- 
betrayed, the earnest deep thought, under the guise of irony and 
humour, presented an outline resembling those grotesque forms 

1 Xenopli. Mem., i. 2. 2 Plato, Sympos., p. 257. 



334 SOCRATES. 

with which the imagination of the G-reeks delighted to people 
the woods and wilds of their land. There were the prominent 
dilated eyes, scarcely parted by the low ridge of the nose, the 
broad expanded nostrils, the wide month with its thick lips, 
such as were represented in the images of the Sileni. Then his 
manner of looking about him — his head fixed, whilst his eyes 
traversed the space around, glancing from side to side — excited 
the smile of wonder in the spectator, as to what this strange 
solemnity of aspect might portend. Add to this, the clumsy 
protuberance of his figure, so repugnant to Grecian notions of 
the symmetry of form, and the awkwardness of his movement 
before the eyes of a people who had a lively perception of 
elegance in every gesture and motion. These were circumstances 
which, to the fastidious taste of the Greeks, would appear more 
important than we can well conceive. 1 Thus, in regard to 
Socrates, the physiognomist Zopyrus pronounced that he was 
stupid and dull, because the outline of his throat was not con- 
cave, but full and obtuse. 2 Prejudices accordingly drawn from 
the personal appearance of Socrates may reasonably be believed 
to have tended to render his teaching unwelcome in its first 
impressions. But soon this fastidiousness would give way as he 
proceeded ; and those w T ho began to listen with a smile at the 
uncouthness of his form, and the quaintness of his manner, 
would be attracted to admiration of the intelligent and kindly 
expression which lighted up those rude features, and would find 
themselves lingering in his presence in spite of themselves. 

The story of Euthydemus " the handsome," as he was called, 
may be taken as a specimen of such an effect. Euthydemus, 
proud of his personal accomplishments, and not wishing to be 
thought indebted to any one for his learning and eloquence, had 
studiously avoided the society of Socrates. Socrates, however, 
with his usual dexterity, contrives to excite his attention, and 
gradually interests him in conversation. Euthydemus shrinks 

1 Aristotle, in treating of arguing such as indications of temper or disposi- 

from Signs in general, notices, under the tion in the form of any class of animals, 

head to (pvaioyvu/Jiove'ii' (Anal. Pr. c. ult.), peculiar to that class, 
conclusions drawn from natural sisrns, 2 Cicero, De Fato, c. 5. 



HIS LIFE AND TEACHINCx. 335 

back at first on his self-conceit, bnt at length is so won npon by 
the persuasive reason of the philosopher, as freely to acknow- 
ledge his own ignorance and need of instruction ; and, ever after- 
wards, he is found by the side of Socrates, his devoted admirer 
and follower. 1 

Some, indeed, took offence at the plain truths which Socrates 
brought home to them, and no longer frequented his society. 2 
But these were the inferior srusjcrish minds, which no arts of 
address could rouse to a sense of their intellectual poverty. 
Generous, susceptible minds overcame their first reluctance, and 
yielded themselves fully to his guidance. The faithful attach- 
ment of many was evidenced to the last moment of the philo- 
sopher's life. He might have commanded the use of Crito's 
wealth, had he desired it. Such, indeed, was the confidence 
which Crito reposed in his sincerity of purpose, and so highly did 
he value his instructions, that to no other would he commit the 
education of his sons, but made them fellow disciples with him- 
self of his own revered master and friend. And this friendship 
was warmly requited by Socrates. For it was by his counsel 
that Crito was saved from the malicious arts of the sycophants. 
These pests of Athenian society were not to be encountered by 
the simple testimony of a life contradicting their mercenary 
calumnies ; and Crito was one of those who would rather pay 
their money, and compromise the attack, than take the trouble 
of defending themselves. They were only to be foiled by turn- 
ing their own weapons against themselves. By the suggestion 
of Socrates, accordingly, Crito enlisted in his service a clever 
individual of this class, Archedemus, who effectually checked 
the iniquities of which his patron was the object, by counter- 
prosecutions of the sycophants, and exposure of their conduct ; 
acting as a watch-dog, according to Xenophon's description, 
against those rapacious wolves. 3 

The devotedness of Plato and Xenophon to their master, 
speaks from every line of their writings. These writings are, in 
fact, as much monuments of the influence of Socrates over their 

1 Xenoph. Mem. iv. 2. 2 Ibid. 40. 3 Ibid. ii. 9. 



336 SOCRATES. 

minds, as of their own genius. And what human teacher has 
ever had such glorious trophies erected, of the conquests of his 
philosophy as the extant works of these master minds ? Entirely 
different as they are in character, — the one flowing with the full 
stream of impassioned feeling, and lively elegant imagination, 
and the abundant treasures of literary and traditionary wisdom, 
— the other sensible and acute and practical, forcible by his very 
simplicity and the terseness of his unaffected eloquence, — they 
bear distinct yet conspiring evidence of the ascendancy of that 
mind which could impart its own tone and character to such 
disciples. Both of them, indeed, lead us to think that they felt 
his society as a kind of spell on them. For, when Plato speaks 
of the charm of the discourses of the Sophists, he seems to speak 
in irony of them what he thought in truth of Socrates himself. 
So, too, when Xenophon introduces Socrates describing himself 
as skilled in " philters and incantations," he is evidently present- 
ing that idea which the conversations of Socrates impressed on 
his own mind. He seems almost to confess this of himself when 
he informs us how Socrates triumphantly appealed to the marked 
devotedness of his followers, in saying, " Why think you that 
this Apollodorus and Antisthenes never quit me? Why, too, 
that Cebes and Simmias come here from Thebes ? Be assured, 
that this is not without many philters, and incantations, and 
shells." 1 

To the same honourable band of attached disciples might 
be added many other names afterwards renowned in the annals 
of Grecian history and literature. Isocrates, Aristippus, Antis- 
thenes, each of whom became afterwards masters themselves, 
were content to follow in his train. Antisthenes especially, 
who, by perverting the Socratic simplicity of life into a profes- 
sion of austerity, became the founder of the Cynic school, was 
never from his side. He would walk from the Piraeus to Athens, 
a distance of about four miles, every day, in order to be with 
Socrates. And whilst Cebes and Simmias came from Thebes, 
Euclides, the founder of the Megaric sect, was not deterred by the 

1 Xenoph. Mem. in. 2. 



HIS LIFE AND TEACHING. 337 

bitter hostility between Athens and his own city of Megara, 
from seeking the society of Socrates at the hazard of his life. 
Even dnring the war, when the Megareans were excluded by a 
rigid decree, he continued his visits to Athens, adopting, it is 
said, the disguise of female attire, and so passing unobserved 
into the city at nightfall, and returning at daybreak. 1 The same 
individual gave still more conclusive evidence of his zealous 
attachment to Socrates afterwards ; when he opened his house 
and his heart to receive, at Megara, his brother disciples, in their 
panic on the death of their master. So strong was the tie of 
reverence and affection which subsisted between the philosopher 
and those whom he drew around him. They formed, indeed, a 
sort of select family, each of whom was engaged in the pursuit 
of his own peculiar employments and tastes in the world, whilst 
all looked up to Socrates as their father and head, and ever re- 
curred to his society as to their common home. 

This domestic intercourse subsisted in the midst of a city 
harassed with jealousies and dissensions, and with severe afflic- 
tions of war and pestilence. Socrates remained unmoved 
through all these convulsions of the city, preserving a constant 
evenness of temper, so that Xanthippe could testify of him, that 
she never saw him returning at evening with a countenance 
changed from that which he left home in the morning. 2 Nor 
could even the merriment of which he was sometimes the object, 
discompose his settled gravity and good humour. On one occa- 
sion, returning from supper late in the evening, he was assaulted 
by a riotous party of young men, personating the Furies, in 
masks, and with lighted torches. 3 The philosopher, however, 
without being irritated by the interruption, suffered them to in- 
dulge their mirth ; only he required them to pay that tribute 
which he exacted from every one that came in his way, to stop 
and answer his questions, as if he had met them in the Lyceum, 
or any other accustomed place of his daily conversations. Him- 
self sound in mind and body, (for his habitual temperance saved 
him from the infection of the plague which so obstinately 

1 Aul. Gell. vi. 10. 2 iElian, Yar. Hist. ix. 7. 3 Ibid. c. 29. 

Z 



338 SOCRATES. 

ravaged Athens), he was enabled to give advice and assistance 
to all of his country in the midst of that physical and moral 
desolation, in which every one else seems, more or less, to have 
participated. 

Thus were the years of a long life quietly and usefully spent ; 
and he had nearly reached that limit at which nature herself 
would have gently closed the scene of his philanthropic exer- 
tions, when the hand of human violence interposed to hasten the 
approaching end. 

The annals of party spirit at Athens had already recorded 
many a deed of dark and wanton cruelty. But they were yet 
to be stained with the iniquity of a persecution, even to death, 
of him who had been the greatest benefactor and ornament, not 
only of Athens, but of the whole community of the Grecian 
name. 

The banishment by ostracism had this redeeming merit, that 
it was an avowal in the face of Greece, of the envious and fac- 
tious spirit, which drove from the state the individual whose 
talents or virtues too greatly distinguished him from among his 
fellow-citizens. The enmity to which Socrates fell a sacrifice, 
exhibits a deeper character of malignity ; inasmuch as it masked 
itself under hypocritical zeal for religion and virtue, and thus 
courted public sympathy for proceedings, against which every 
voice in Athens and in all Greece should have indignantly pro- 
tested. Ostracism, again, was content to remove the obnoxious 
great man from the eyes of his fellow-citizens. The attack on 
Socrates was satisfied with nothing short of the destruction of 
its victim. 

It was in the midst of the tranquil, but busy course of his 
daily engagement, that Socrates was suddenly arrested, and 
without, it seems, any previous intimation of the intended at- 
tack, summoned to the portico of the king-Archon, to answer a 
charge of impiety. 1 

1 Plato, Thecetet. ad Jin. Euthyphro. democracy, of the priestly office of the 

et alib. The king-Archon was a sort of King during the monarchy at Athens. 

minister of state for the department of See Demosthenes, conU Necer. 
Religion— the representative, under the 



THE ACCUSATION AND TRIAL. 339 

The accusation was in this form : " Socrates is guilty of the 
crime of not acknowledging the gods whom the state acknow- 
ledges, but introducing other new divinities : he is guilty also 
of the crime of corrupting the young/' The penalty proposed 
was death. It has been commonly supposed that the charge 
was laid before the court of Areopagus. But it would appear 
rather, from the course of the trial, to have been before one of 
the popular courts, and probably, from the great number of 
dicasts or jurors who voted on the cause, before the principal 
court, the Helisea. 

The circumstances connected with the accusation remain, 
after the utmost inquiry now possible, involved in considerable 
mystery. We are told that Meletus was the accuser, and that 
he was supported in the prosecution by Anytus and Lycon. 
These three individuals are also said to have represented distinct 
classes of persons interested in the proceedings ; Meletus, who 
was himself a poet, appearing in behalf of the offended poets ; 
Anytus, a wealthy tradesman and demagogue, resenting the 
affronts of his brother-tradesmen ; Lycon, an orator, or politician 
by profession, standing up as the assertor of the pretensions of 
his factious order. But these 'particulars, though they may ac- 
count to us in a great measure for the success of the prosecution, 
do not exhibit the secret agency by which it was effected. The 
accusers themselves were men of no note or importance in the 
state. Meletus was a young man ; a vain and weak person, it 
seems, of whom nothing more is known than that the accusation 
was made in his name. ISTor of Anytus and Lycon have we any- 
thing to mark the importance, beyond the fact, that the former 
was included, together with Alcibiacles and Thrasybulus, among 
the persons exiled by the Thirty, and the notice taken of him by 
Plato, where he represents him the inexorable foe of every thing 
in the shape of a philosopher, and as parting from a conversation 
with Socrates in anger. 1 Merely personal offence, however, could 
not have given sufficient pretext or weight to so grave an accu- 
sation. Nor can we suppose that it was even the combined in- 

1 Xen. Hell. ii. 3. 42, 44.— Plato, Afeno. 



340 SOCRATES. 

terest of the three classes represented by the three accusers — the 
poets, the tradesmen, and the orators — which carried the con- 
demnation of so respected a person. The ground of the attack 
must lie deeper ; and the men whose names appear so promi- 
nently in this fatal conspiracy against the life of the venerable 
old philosopher, could only have been the puppets moved by 
some secret and more commanding force. The trial would seem 
to have been only a solemn pageant, exhibited before the public, 
as a prelude and justification of a deed of murder already re- 
solved on by its real though invisible perpetrators. Whilst the 
charges themselves, as set forth by the nominal accusers, were 
but feebly sustained, it is evident that no defence, however just 
and able, could have availed to avert the sentence of condemna- 
tion. The body of jurors before whom the cause was heard, 
appear to have been disposed to acquit the accused, if we may 
judge from the number of votes which were given in his favour ; 
and yet the majority were overruled. This in itself would lead 
us to think that some secret influence had been exercised, to 
obviate the chance of failure of the ordinary ostensible means of 
judicial assault. And so Socrates himself appears to have felt ; 
if Plato and Xenophon have faithfully reported the substance of 
his reply to the accusation in their Apologies. His defence, as 
there represented, is that of one who retires, on his own conscious- 
ness of right, from a bootless conflict with adversaries who are 
not to be appeased by argument and persuasion. It does not set 
forth the strength of his cause as against an opponent, but simply 
asserts the truth and merit of the course of life which he had 
been pursuing. 1 The sentence accordingly excites no surprize 
in him. He yields himself up as to the sweeping of a tempest, 
with which it is vain to parley. "Would we then explore the 
circumstances of the trial and condemnation of Socrates, we 
must obtain a deeper insight into the moving power of Grecian 
politics — the spirit of the Heathen Eeligion, and the mode of its 

1 See the same exemplified in what fievroi nai iyw oWa 6'ri irddos iradoijii &v 
Socrates is made to reply to Callicles in elcre\d<bv els dLKaarrjpLOP, ac.t.A. 
the Qorgias of Plato, p. 162, toctovtov 



SPIRIT OF HEATHEN RELIGION. 341 

action on the conduct of states and individuals. This appears 
to be the proper solution of the case of Socrates. The circum- 
stances of the case evidently point to this. And though, from 
the want of information, we cannot very distinctly trace the 
working of the religion of the times in the particular instance 
before us, we may, from a closer consideration of the facts, not 
unreasonably suspect its active operation and instrumentality. 

Speculators have sometimes spoken of the mild and tolerant 
spirit of paganism. The observation, however, is superficial and 
untrue. The facility with which the polytheistic worshipper 
transferred his offerings and prayers to every new idol, has been 
mistaken for a readiness to admit any variation from the estab- 
lished worship, or any freedom of opinion respecting divine 
things, without offence. The contrary is the fact. The heathen, 
resting his religion on ancient tradition 1 and the authority of 
the priests, and not on any intrinsic evidences of its truth, could 
not but feel a jealousy of any departure from what he had thus 
received, or any attempt to bring the subject into discussion. It 
was not only the primitive Christians that were stigmatised by 
heathens as atheists, because they renounced the divinities of 
the heathen creed, but the same reproach was long before cast 
upon those among the heathens themselves, who, with however 
pious disposition, ventured to speculate on religion. A mere 
traditionary religion will tolerate any laxity of thought or con- 
duct which professedly admits its authority, whilst it peremp- 
torily puts down everything which impugns the principle of 
absolute deference to its authority. Thus we shall find that, 
where that principle is carried to the utmost, there co-exists 
with it a scarcely-concealed infidelity, and an unrestrained licen- 
tiousness of conduct ; and, at the same time, also an extreme 
sensitiveness in regard to deviation from the received profession 
and language on the subject. We have unhappily seen this in 

1 Demosthenes (Orat. against Nece- things, IW Kara rot, irdrpia ^vrjrai r<x 

ra) speaks of a column erected in the dpprjra lepa virkp ttjs irdXeus, kcu t& 

Temple at Limnse, iu ry apxatorctTOJ vop.i$bp.eva ylyvrjTaL rots deois evaej3Qs, 

iep<$ rod Alovvo-ov kolI ayiwrdrip, standing nal firjdh /caraXi/TjTcu, p.y}bk KaivoTop,r\ra.i. 
in his time, which stated, among other 



342 SOCRATES. 

those Christian countries, where the true faith, the principle of 
devout submission to the word of God, has been transformed 
and perverted into one of resigned submission to the authority 
of the living ministers of that word. There — as, for example, in 
Spain and Italy — where the authority of the Church is bowed to 
most submissively, practical infidelity and immorality shew their 
front with impunity, whilst the expression of opinion or argu- 
ment on questions of theology is discouraged and silenced, if no 
longer now, as once, crushed at its outbreak by the dark terrors 
of an Inquisition. The same fact was intensely exemplified in 
heathen Athens. At no place was piety, as piety was under- 
stood by heathens, more in honour. No state boasted such a 
tradition of sacred associations as Athens. In none were there 
so many festivals and solemnities of religious observance as in 
Athens. 1 In none did the priests of religion hold such sway. 
Witness their power over Alcibiades at the moment of his 
political triumph, and amidst the caresses and admiration of his 
fellow-citizens, when he felt himself obliged to relinquish his 
command in Sicily, and desert his country, rather than encounter 
at home the threatened prosecution for his profanation of sacred 
things. Witness their power again in the instance of the same 
Alcibiades, at his restoration to the command of the army, when, 
to conciliate their favour, he delays the urgent expedition, and 
keeps the soldiers under arms along the road by which the 
sacred procession passed from Athens to Eleusis. Witness 
further, the frequent prosecutions at Athens on charges of 
impiety of which we read, and of which we have monuments in 
extant orations. But, amidst this strictness of external pro- 
fession, in no place was there a more entire license as to practical 
irreligion. Their festivals abounded with rude and obscene 
mirth. Their drama, whilst it inculcated in direct precept the 
belief and worship of the gods, indulged in the most profane 

1 Aristoph. Nub. 298. vaoi 0' v\pepe<peis ical dydXfiara, 

od aefias apprjTuv iepQv, 'iva evaricfHivoL re OeCov dvaicu ddklai re 

fivcTToddKos 56/xos TravTodaircus kv &pais, k. t. X. 

kv reXercus ayiais amdeinvvTcu, Also Thncyd. ii. 38 ; and De fiejnib. 

ovpavioLS re deocs dwprjpLara, Athen. attributed to Xeuophon. 



SPIRIT OF HEATHEN RELIGION. 343 

ribaldry and ludicrous representation of sacred things. Yet 
were these follies and excesses tolerated, because under them a 
regard was still maintained to the authority which upheld the 
Eeligion, as in the " mysteries " and " moralities " enacted with 
the connivance of the papal power in modern times ; and the 
people at large were satisfied with a religious system which was 
exhibited to them as so good-humoured and humane. They 
were tolerated, indeed, but not without the like injury to the 
religious feelings, as in the parallel cases, where a corrupted 
secular Christianity has ventured on the like palliations of its 
despotism. For all the while the people were losing their hold 
of the popular religion. Those who thought at all on the sub- 
ject, either rejected it altogether, or accounted it a mere matter 
of opinion and external ordinance ; whilst those, on the other 
hand, who were content to receive everything traditionary as 
divine on the mere principle of deference to the priests, readily 
engrafted every new superstition on the received religion. Thus, 
whilst infidelity and superstition grew up at Athens, and flou- 
rished together, and often perhaps in the same mind, the con- 
nection between religion and morality was altogether lost sight 
of and dissolved. Men began to regard themselves as devout, 
and friends of the gods, whilst they were committing deeds of 
violence and lust, and blindly and wickedly endeavoured to 
support the cause of religion by forcible suppression of the truth, 
and persecution of those who subjected their tenets or their rites 
to the test of inquiry. Thus, whilst Aristophanes was amusing 
the people, not of Athens only, but from all parts of Greece, at 
the public festivals, with ludicrous representations of the popular 
theology, and loosening more and more any existing associations 
of reverence towards the objects of their worship, severe prose- 
cutions were carried on from time to time against all who in any 
way made Eeligion a matter of debate, or seriously brought it 
into question with the people. The same persons can take part 
in the vulgar low jest, and shew their real contempt of religion 
by their carelessness about oaths and the practical duties of 
religion, and yet join zealously in the prosecution of offenders 



344 SOCRATES. 

against established notions on the subject. It is the same habit 
of mind in both cases ; a habit of looking at Eeligion as a general 
rule of external profession — as a rule belonging to a community 
— rather than as a personal concern, and an internal discipline 
and trial of the spirit of a man. " He has brought Gentiles into 
the temple ; he has abolished circumcision ; he has profaned our 
law and our temple ;" was the outcry against St. Paul : and yet 
these same persons, thus clamorous against the Apostle, were 
minding earthly things all the while, jealous of any innovation 
on existing forms, and customs, and privileges, as these are parts 
of an instituted system, — in their personal religion, unstable and 
variable, drifted about by every passing breath of passion or of 
interest. 

At Athens, accordingly, though there was no freedom of 
religious opinion, as such, the Eeligion might be employed to 
excite festive mirth, and gratify the levity and licentiousness of 
a dissolute yet intellectual populace, amidst the charms of 
poetry and music and the solemn graceful dance. For then 
the associations of deference to the mysterious agency which 
held together the traditions of the popular creed were not 
violently broken asunder. There still remained in the minds 
of the people an awe at the indefinite mystic truth, hidden 
under, or dimly seen through, the embroidered veil held before 
their eyes. They knew that the splendid drama of Eeligion, 
which at once gratified their refined intellectual taste and their 
sensibility, was not the whole of their Eeligion. They had, at 
the same time, the Eleusinian Mysteries ; rites performed in 
secrecy, and fenced round with the terror of death to him 
that should divulge them; delegated to a few, the initiated 
only, and incommunicable to the vulgar ; of which the popular 
rites were but the rude symbols. 1 There were also the wild 
orgies of the worship of Bacchus, celebrated in the darkness of 
night, consecrating the vilest abominations of lust and violence, 

1 Isocrat. Panegyr. p. 54. "As ovx TepL re tt}s rod fiiov reXevrrjs, ko.1 rod 
olbv r' dWoiS r) rots fxe/xvrjjuevois anoveiv avfiwavros alwuos, rjStovs ras iXirtdas 
, . . kclI ri]v TeXerrjv, -i^s ol fxeracrx^vTes exovatv. 



SPIRIT OF HEATHEN RELIGION. 345 

as acts of a pious frenzy, the inspiration of the God in his 
votaries. The popular worship might wear the form of carica- 
ture, the grotesque, the farcical, and even the profane, as being 
merely the pantomime in which some recondite interior religion 
was dimly and wildly shadowed. The people laughed at what 
they saw and heard at their festivals. The ludicrous might 
seem at times to be carried too far, and to be endangering the 
hold of the religious belief on the mind of the people. Thus, we 
find Euripides in the play of the Bacchee, counteracting that 
impression which the extreme ludicrousness of the Dionysus 
represented by Aristophanes might produce on the spectators, by 
holding up to them a counterpart picture of the same Dionysus, 
as the son of Jove, and a conqueror of his enemies ; and declaim- 
ing against all subtle refinements on the faith of the people as 
"a wisdom that was no wisdom;" 1 whilst he labours also to 
remove the imputations of immodesty from the celebration of 
the Bacchic rites. 2 But amidst their laugh there was evidently 
a feeling of awe, which subdued the luxury of their mirth; a 
consciousness that, whilst they sportively shook the chain of 
their superstition, its iron entered into their soul. We see, on 
the other hand, Aspasia, the favourite of Pericles, at the time of 
the greatest popularity of that most popular leader, summoned 
before the courts, to answer a charge of impiety, and scarcely 
defended by the eloquence and the tears of Pericles himself, 
from the inexorable power whose vengeance she had provoked 
by her speculations. Protagoras, admired as he was and 
courted at Athens for his talent in his profession of a Sophist, 
was, at last, expelled from the city and borders of Attica by 
the Athenians; and his books were collected by proclamation 
and burnt in their agora, for his avowed scepticism as to the 



1 Eurip. Bacch. 424. yvvaiKas els tt}v Kvirpiv dXX' iv rrj 
ccxpav 5' airex eLV ""pctTi'So. Qpeva re, (fruaei 

irepicrcrCjv wapa (pwrCov rb crw^povelv tvecriv els t<x ttolvt del' 

to ttXtj^os 6' n t6 (pav\6repov tovto aKOxeip XPV ' Ka ^ 7<*p & /3a/cxetf- 
ev6p.L<re xp9\roX re, r65e tol Xtyoip,' &v. p.acnv 

2 Ibid. 312. ova, 77 ye o-{b<f>pwv ov dtacp^aprjaeTai. 
ovx Aidvvaos aocppovelv avayndaei 



346 SOCRATES. 

existence of the gods. 1 iEschylus, whose very poetry is instinc- 
tive with religion, was accused before the Areopagus of divulging 
the mysteries in one of his tragedies. 2 The philosopher Anaxa- 
goras, like Galileo under his papal inquisitors, suffered imprison- 
ment at the hands of Athenian persecutors, for having asserted 
the material nature of the heavenly bodies, and only escaped 
condemnation by the intervention of Pericles, and by exile from 
his adopted home. Pericles himself, as a disciple of Anaxagoras, 
was threatened with the like charge. And when he had to 
defend Aspasia, it was not his eloquence, but his tears and 
entreaties in her behalf, that prevailed for her acquittal. The 
extent again, to which prosecutions for offences against the 
popular religion could be carried at Athens, is shewn in the 
number of persons who were imprisoned on suspicion of being 
implicated in the impieties charged on Alcibiades, and the 
execution of so many, on that occasion of panic, on the unsup- 
ported evidence of secret informers. Lastly, not many years 
before the accusation of Socrates, Diagoras the Melian, and 
Theodorus of Gyrene, were branded with the epithet of atheists ; 
and the former was forced to fly from Athens on a charge of 
profanation of the rites, with the price of a talent set on his 
head for any one who should kill him. The like jealousy with 
regard to the sacred rites, is illustrated in the story of the 
(laughter of Nesera, as told by Demosthenes, in his Oration 
against Nesera. This person had been married, under the 
pretence of being an Athenian citizen, to an Athenian who 
served the office of the King-Archon. As the wife of this 
officer of the state, she was admitted to the rites, and solemnly 
inducted into the mystic temple of Bacchus at Limnse. But it 
was unlawful for any but a true-born citizen to enter into the 
temple, or to witness the rites : and her husband consequently 
was tried before the court of Areopagus for the "impiety," and 
only escaped on the plea of his ignorance of the fact or " profana- 
tion" as concerning her, and on the condition of dismissing her 
from his house. And long after the time of Socrates, the same 
1 Diog. Laer. ix. c. 8. Cic. De Nat. Deor. i. 23. " iElian, Var. Hist. v. 19. 



SPIRIT OF HEATHEN RELIGION. 347 

spirit subsisted to drive Aristotle from trie Lyceum, and later 
still, to intimidate the speculations of Epicurus. So strictly was 
the authority of the established worship guarded by a jealous 
and watchful inquisitorial power, in a state which boasted of its 
perfect liberty of speech, its flrag|jj<r/a, above all others. 

In fact, there was no liberty of speech on this subject in 
Greece. Every thing relating to religion was to be received 
as handed down from former ages ; as the wisdom of an imme- 
morial antiquity, borne along on the lips of the priest and the 
prophet, or impressed on mystic rituals, the hereditary trust of 
sacred families, or symbolized in the pomp and pageant of 
festivals and games, in the graceful majesty of temples, and the 
solemn shadows of sacred groves. The inward devotion of such 
a Eeligion naturally took the form of silence, and reserve, and 
awe. It was concentrated in the simple dread of profanation. 
The more superstitious indeed a people is, the more necessary is 
it that the rites of their religion should be strictly shut up from 
all inquiry, and a feeling of reserve should be inculcated as 
essential to the religious character. It is the indefiniteness of 
superstition that holds together the system. Let any one part 
of the vaguely-floating system be touched too palpably ; and the 
whole crumbles. Thus it has been found, that superstition and 
infidelity have always gone hand in hand. Diagoras was made 
an atheist from being at first superstitious. The Athenian people, 
in like manner, from their superstitious character, were pecu- 
liarly exposed to a reaction of impiety. And it was but a 
wise policy, therefore, that the Eeligion of Athens should be 
jealously guarded with an awe forbidding all inquiry into its 
truth. 

The colloquial and lively spirit of the Athenians mitigated 
the intensity of this feeling in the minds of the people at large ; 
and the managers of the system were fain to relieve it, by 
blending recreation, and mirth, and interesting spectacles, with 
its public celebration. Grecian superstition accordingly, whilst 
it bore the essential marks of its oriental origin, in the submis- 
siveness exacted of his votaries, and its mystic reserve, assumed 



348 SOCRATES. 

also the mask of cheerful expression characteristic of the genius 
of the people. Still we see that submissiveness and that reserve 
strongly marked in the stern denial of the right, not only of 
private judgment on questions of Keligion, but even of bringing 
such questions at all into discussion. 

Now, though, as we have already observed, we cannot 
distinctly trace the steps by which this spiritual despotism was 
brought to bear on Socrates, we cannot doubt that his was a case 
which must have attracted its notice. During more than forty 
years, Socrates had been seen at Athens, going about among all 
classes of the people, exciting among them a spirit of moral 
inquiry, urging on them the importance and the duty of self- 
knowledge, of taking no opinion on mere hearsay, or indolent 
and self-satisfied trust, but of bringing every thing to the test of 
discussion and learning, of acquainting themselves, as their first 
step to knowledge, with the depth and extent of their ignorance. 
Observers saw in this extraordinary teacher, one of their own 
citizens, educated in their own institutions, familiar with the 
habits of Athenian life, ever at home among themselves, recom- 
mending himself alike to the young and the old, by the honest 
though quaint dignity of his manner, and the interest and charm 
of his conversation. He was not, like Anaxagoras, or Protagoras, 
or Prodicus, a stranger sojourning among them; a philosopher 
Or rhetorician by profession, or one pursuing philosophy as a 
trade and a source of subsistence, waiting to be resorted to and 
courted by the affluent and noble, and reserving himself for 
occasions of display or profit ; but he was found an Athenian 
among Athenians, in the market-place, in the streets, in the 
workshops, at the tables of the wealthy, himself seeking out 
persons to instruct, asking questions of all around him, and 
engaging them, even in spite of themselves, in conversation with 
him. 1 In other teachers, Philosophy had spoken, according to 

1 Plato, Euthyphro. 3 d., p. 6. "Ey& Xenoph. Mem. i. 2. 'AXXa t&vM 

ht cpo[3odp,ai, fjit] virb (piXavdpcoTias 5o/cu) toI <re d.7r^xe(r0at, £<p7], der/aei, & 2u)Kpa- 

avrois o, rl irep £%co e/c/cexu/z^ws iravri res, tlov atcvrtioit /cat t&v t€Kt6vu)p /cat 

avSpi Xeyecv, ov fibvov, aVeu fiiadov, dXXa twc x a ^ K ^ v , Ka ^ 7&P olfiai (Critias is 

/cat TrpoariOels &u r/5^ws, etrLs .fxov idtXot. speaking) avrotrs 1}5t] KaTarerplcpdai 5ta- 

dKoveiv. dpvXov^uovs vwb crov. P. 21. 



SPIRIT OF HEATHEN RELIGION. 349 

the observation already made, as from an oracular shrine, to 
those only who came to inquire of it as votaries and disciples. 
With Socrates, Philosophy walked abroad, insinuating itself 
into the scenes and business of daily life, and drawing forth 
the secret treasures of men's minds with its own hands. 
According to that homely but apt illustration of his mode of 
teaching, which he was so fond of employing, from midwifery, 
his method freely offered its services in assisting at the birth of 
the thought with which the pregnant mind was labouring. He 
busied himself, he used to say, with the officiousness of his ma- 
ternal art, in exploring the genuineness of the fruit of the intel- 
lectual womb, which his dexterous questions had brought to 
light. 1 Such a person, then, could not but fix on himself the 
eyes of every attentive observer of the state of society in Athens. 
Such teaching evidently could not but have a very considerable 
influence on public opinion. Particularly, when he was seen to 
be acceptable to men of all parties in the state, to the leaders of 
the aristocratic faction as well as the humblest citizen, it could 
not but be inferred, that his influence was not a transitory one, 
dependent on the predominance of any party, but that it would 
reach to the fundamental constitution of the society at large of 
the city, and be a leaven of fermentation to the whole mass. 
What then, it would naturally be asked, must be the effect of 
such a teacher on existing opinions in Eeligion \ He taught, 
indeed, that men should acquiesce in what was established in 
Eeligion ; that they should inquire no further here than what 
simply was the law of the state. He treated, too, the popular 
imagery of Eeligion with respect. For he would often clothe his 
instructions in the language of the legends and traditions of 
their mythology. Nor did he attempt to explain them away, 
though he waved all discussion of them. He was seen, too, on 
all stated occasions, sacrificing at the altars of the gods, and 
joining in the rites. 2 But, it would be asked, if the citizens 
were taught to examine into received opinions generally, would 

1 See especially Plato's Thecetetus in illustration of this. 
2 Plato, Euthyphr. and Phcedrus. 



350 SOCKATES. 

they abstain from carrying this principle into the subject of 
Eeligion ? Would they continue still blindly and submissively 
to follow the voice of authority ? Would they not rather, so far 
as they were disciples of Socrates, begin to speculate on divine 
things, abandoning that reverence which they had hitherto main- 
tained for the objects of public worship, disputing and discussing 
without reserve, and exposing to the vulgar gaze what had been 
all along venerated in mystic silence, and under the veil of 
symbol ? The mercurial temperament of the Athenian was just 
the soil in which the seeds now scattered by the hand of Socrates 
might be expected to vegetate. The excessive prosperity, too, of 
Athens, during the fifty years immediately following the Persian 
war, and then its condition of struggle against internal faction 
and the confederate arms of Peloponnesus, were circumstances 
calculated to foster the profane irreligious spirit in a light- 
hearted people. Then, instances were not wanting of young men, 
the intimates of Socrates, and whose minds had been especially 
cultivated by conversation with him, who proved in the end 
traitors to the Eeligion as well as to the civil liberties of their 
country. Critias, afterwards one of the " Thirty Tyrants," and 
Alcibiades, at once the pride and the pest of his fellow-citizens, 
whom they loved and hated, and banished and longed for by 
turns, were striking evidences, to the superficial observation, of 
tlhe evil apprehended from the teaching of Socrates. For here 
were young men of ability, susceptible by nature of the fullest 
influence of the lessons of the philosopher ; and yet these had 
failed under his hands. What, therefore, might not be expected 
of minds of inferior order ? How would not the Eeligion and 
the institutions of the city fall into profane neglect and contempt, 
should the Socratic spirit of inquiry be imbibed by the next 
generation of citizens ? The observation, indeed, was only a 
very superficial one, which would infer from such instances the 
evil of the teaching which these individuals misapplied. Still, 
it is plain, that such cases were pointed at with invidious refe- 
rence to Socrates and Philosophy in general. We find the orator 
iEschines attributing the death of Socrates to the circumstance 



THE COMEDY OF THE CLOUDS. 351 

of his having educated Critias ; 1 not that he must be supposed to 
have believed this to have been the whole account of the trial 
and condemnation of Socrates ; but, as an orator, he states, for the 
purposes of his argument, what he conceives would be readily 
believed as part of the account of that event. Plato also, as has 
been before observed, studiously addresses himself to the defence 
of Philosophy from objection on this ground, with evident allu- 
sion to Alcibiades and the like cases ; arguing that the same 
individuals who were most susceptible of the good of Philosophy, 
were also such as would be the most apt to abuse it. And pro- 
bably he had the same design, when he refers to the degenerate 
sons of Pericles himself, as an instance in point to those who 
cherished the memory of that great man, and of the times in 
which he flourished, to shew that the philosopher was not to be 
held responsible for the extravagances and vices of the disciple. 2 
The exhibition of the comedy of " The Clouds," appears to 
have been designed to bring before the people the supposed evil 
tendency of the teaching of Socrates, as exemplified in such dis- 
tinguished instances. It was produced in the year B. c. 423, 
when the philosopher had attained his forty-seventh year, and 
was at the height of his reputation throughout Greece, and about 
twenty-three years before his death. There we have Socrates 
introduced by name under broad caricature, as the representative 
of the class of Sophists, and a consummate master of the arro- 
gant pretension, and sordid cunning, and impiety, of the worst 
individuals of the class. The clouds are his only divinities. A 
profligate spendthrift youth, and a dotard father, are his dupes. 
The inquisitive method which Socrates practised is also held up 
to ridicule and contempt, by identifying it with the frivolous 
questionings of the grammarians, and dialecticians, and rhetori- 
cians of the day, and with the perverse sophistry which held 

1 iEschin. con Tirnarch. Socrates and Hippias. Isocrates, in 

2 Plato. See the Protag. and Rep. vi. Busiris, with the like feeling, denies 
— Xenophon adverts, in like manner, to that Alcibiades was educated by So- 
the charge of corruption as supported crates ; meaning, it seems, that Alci- 
by the instances of Critias and Alcibia- biades was too short a time with So- 
des, Mem., i. 2. See also the conversa- crates to be really improved by the 
tion which Xenophon reports between instruction which he received. 



352 SOCRATES. 

truth a matter of indifference, or, which amounted to the same 
thing, called every man's opinion truth, and boasted of its skill 
to make the worse appear the better cause. It was but too evi- 
dent, to Athenian spectators at least, that the Socrates of Aristo- 
phanes was not the Socrates whom they had been accustomed to 
see and converse with in real life, and the play, accordingly, 
failed at the first exhibition. Not all its charms of poetry, and 
humour, and skilful composition, could obtain for it a favourable 
reception. Though Aristophanes was aware that the portrait 
which he had drawn was not a portrait of the individual but of 
the class, there can be little doubt that he calculated on the 
sympathy of the people in giving the name of Socrates to his 
personification of the sophistical spirit, and that he felt it neces- 
sary to depreciate the influence of Socrates as the commanding 
influence of the day, by attributing to his method all the vices 
of the schools of the Sophists. Socrates is honoured and compli- 
mented in the very attempt to weaken the respect for his instruc- 
tions, and to awaken a clamour against him. The failure of 
The Clouds at the first representation, and one account adds, even 
at the second (for the play is said to have been retouched for the 
third time), has been attributed to the influence of Alcibiades. 
Alcibiades, indeed, has been supposed by some commentators to 
have been no less the object of attack in the play than Socrates 
himself, and to have been designated under the name of Phidip- 
pides, the youthful and accomplished victim of the Sophist. 
There are certainly some traits in the character of Phidippides 
which would seem to point at Alcibiades, whom perhaps the 
poet, bold as he was, could hardly venture to bring on the stage 
by name, or closer description, at this particular time. And we 
may perhaps justly allow some weight to party influence in 
neutralizing the effect of The Clouds at its first exhibition. Still, 
when we observe in other instances the great power which the 
comic muse could wield against a political opponent, as in the 
attack on Cleon in The Knights, we cannot but think that there 
was some strong countervailing feeling in the public estimation of 
Socrates himself. If the account of iElian be true, Socrates could 



THE COMEDY OF THE CLOUDS. 353 

join in the laugh raised against him, for he was present in the 
theatre during the acting of the play, and finding that he was the 
object of attraction, placed himself where all could command a 
view of him. 1 He knew, and every one in Athens knew, 
that he was a very different person from the Sophists with 
whom the play identified him. They indeed were corrupters of 
the young : for they unsettled every principle in the minds of 
the young, and gave no substitute for what they profligately 
swept away. They left the young to be drifted away by the tide 
of their passions, with no criterion of truth or of right beyond 
the present opinion or the present interest. But Socrates, whilst 
he taught the young to inquire into the truth of their opinions, 
lessened their presumption and self-confidence, by shewing them 
how apt they were to mistake mere assumptions for knowledge, 
and to be conceited of their ignorance. His object was truth 
and accurate knowledge. He stated difficulties and objections, 
not in the spirit of a sceptic, but in order to awaken curiosity, 
to clear away confusion of thought, and inculcate sound princi- 
ples of judgment and conduct. He could well, then, laugh at 
the jest which glanced from him to its proper objects, the Sophists 
themselves, the very persons against whom his whole teaching 
was directed. He felt doubtless that he had a hold on the 
people at large, which the Sophists had not. They were for the 
most part known only to the great and wealthy ; those who 
could receive them into their houses, as they went from city to 
city through Greece ; who sought their society as patrons of 
literature, or aspirants after political distinction, and who could 
pay for their instructions. He, on the contrary, was accessible 
to all. He would receive no money from any one. He was the 
frequent guest of the rich ; but he was no less the associate of the 
artizan and the poor ; and many must have been present in 
the theatre, when the Socrates of The Clouds was amusing 
the audience by his sleight-of-hand philosophy, who would remem- 
ber the real Socrates as a man of honesty, and truth, and disin- 
terested benevolence, from whom they had received much useful 

1 ^Elian, Var. Hist. 
2A 



354 ' SOCRATES. 

counsel from time to time, and whom they had ever found affable, 
and at leisure to enter into their feelings and views with patience 
and kindness. If w T e compare the Socrates of the Memorabilia 
of Xenophon with the Socrates of The Clouds, we may judge 
how great was the contrast to those who could compare the well- 
known philosopher of the agora with his portrait as drawn by 
Aristophanes. If we can smile at the caricature of The Clouds, 
and yet love the excellent moralist of the Memorabilia, we may 
also conceive how harmless the satire of Aristophanes would 
really be against the object of it ; whilst the jokes of the 
poet, true as to the personal peculiarities of the philosopher, 
amused a volatile and clever people. For them to have con- 
founded Socrates with the class of Sophists, would have been 
in them the like palpable mistake, as it would be to confound 
the philosopher Bacon, on account of some points of resemblance, 
with the alchemist and empiric of the preceding ages. 

It might seem matter of reproach against Aristophanes, that, 
in selecting the name of Socrates to represent the sophistical 
spirit which had then so largely corrupted the education and 
the government of Athens, he pointed the shafts of the comic 
muse aginst the very person who was in truth its most success- 
ful antagonist. In such a view of the case, however, sufficient 
justice would not be done to the discernment of the poet. He 
shrewdly observed in Socrates the master-genius which would 
ultimately cast into the shade all those busy professors of the 
art of education, who, under the name of Sophists, or professors 
of all knowledge, were then attracting the notice of the world to 
themselves and their teaching. Socrates, in himself, Aristo- 
phanes could not but admire, and recommend to the imitation 
of his country. He doubtless knew Socrates to be a true patriot 
no less than himself — to be steadily aiming to bring back the 
Athenians to the purity of their institutions, from which they 
had so sadly degenerated, by his instructive conversations ; as he 
was by the satirical strokes of the drama. Socrates, too, appears 
to have been his personal friend ; for Plato introduces them 
as meeting on terms of intimacy, not many years after the 



THE COMEDY OF THE CLOUDS. 355 

first exhibition of The Clouds. But with that freedom which 
the state of mariners, under an absolute democracy, sanc- 
tioned and encouraged, Aristophanes did not scruple to bring- 
even the revered name of Socrates on the stage, to give the due 
point to his satire. He overlooked the individual, the Socrates 
with whom he familiarly conversed, and presented before the 
spectators what he saw in Socrates, the living speaking imper- 
sonation of the influence of education on the character of a 
people, for good or for evil. Anaxagoras, or Protagoras, or Pro- 
dicus, or any other of the well-known philosophers or sophists 
of the day, might have occupied the foreground in the comedy 
of The Clouds ; had the poet sought to give merely a fugitive 
sketch of the sophistical spirit of his times, or to single out for 
ridicule some of its external superficial features. This is what 
Plato has done on many occasions, and especially in that most 
animated picture in the dialogue entitled Protagoras, where he 
groups together the figures of the leading Sophists in such admir- 
able relief with each other, and such happy contrast with the 
unpretending form of his own revered master and friend* 
Such a view, however, could not have answered the design 
of Aristophanes in his play of The Clouds. His object was 
to seize the deep, influential characters of the system of 
education which was then extending itself throughout Greece, 
and especially as it was manifested at Athens, the great school 
of all Greece. Naturally, therefore, and wisely, he fixed his eye 
on an Athenian — and that Athenian, Socrates — not only as the 
first Athenian who had appeared in the office of a philosophical 
instructor, but who, as an Athenian, gave to his lessons the cha- 
racter of Athenian civilization, and fitly exemplified the influ- 
enc of philosophical education in the hands of an Athenian, and 
as operating on Athenians. 

The poet, indeed, as addressing the eye and the ear of the 

* Aristophanes himself is made by to proceed in the regular course when it 

Plato the object of satire, in the pic- comes to his turn to speak; and when 

ture which he presents of him in the he does speak, his comic vein is carica- 

Symposium. He is there exhibited tared in the ludicrous myth ascribed to 

as unable, from an attack of hiccough, him as his part in the discussion. 



356 SOCRATES. 

ordinary observer, and not Athenians only, but strangers of the 
Grecian name from all parts, mingles with his colouring some 
playful lights borrowed from the forms of the well-known pro- 
fessional Sophists of the day. But neither are these representa- 
tions, nor the allusions which he makes to the real eccentricities 
of manner and uncouthness of person in Socrates, the points on 
which he desires to fix the attention of the theatre. It is the 
important modification of the Athenian character, under a sys- 
tem of education which had now reached its maturity. Under 
the administration of Pericles, that system had already infected 
the policy of the state, and perverted its courts of justice into 
sinks of corruption and oppression. Now, at length, it was 
found domesticated at Athens in the sanctuary of private life. 
An Athenian had appeared in the character of a teacher of Phi- 
losophy ; and around him were gathered citizens of all ranks, 
from the noble youth who aspired to the helm of the state, and 
the wealthy patron of literature, to the mean artizan who worked 
at the forge, and the drudge of the market. What was further 
to be observed now, was, that the system came recommended by 
the eloquence of lively and exciting conversation. And how 
powerful must have been such conversation, as it came forth 
from the lips of the speaker in the elegant and terse Attic 
idiom ! It was no wonder, therefore, that the comic poet 
should have seized this moment for portraying the danger which 
he anticipated to his country from the fashionable education of 
the day, and thrown all the force of his ridicule on the most 
attractive form in which it then presented itself, as displayed in 
the personal teaching and example of Socrates. 

The testimony of Plato is to the same effect. Plato has not 
given us an exact portrait of Socrates any more than Aristo- 
phanes has ; for he has evidently transferred to the Socrates of 
his Dialogues, not less of his own cast of mind and manner, 
than Aristophanes did to the Socrates of his comedy, of the 
general tone of the Sophists. And this is to be accounted for, 
as in the case of Aristophanes, from the fact, that Plato regarded 
Socrates as the impersonation of the Philosophy of the times. 



THE COMEDY OF THE CLOUDS. 357 

He felt that, to give his own doctrines a proper authority and 
weight, he could not employ a more effectual organ than the 
tongue of him who had first given to Philosophy an Attic expres- 
sion, and from whom it would henceforth derive its proper 
Grecian character. 

But though the drama of The Clouds was unsuccessful as an 
attack on Socrates, if it were intended as such, or as an attack 
on the Sophists under the name of Socrates, which is the more 
probable view of its design, it must not be supposed that the 
play produced no effect unfavourable to Socrates. The tradition, 
that Aristophanes was employed by Anytus and Meletus to write 
down Socrates, does not seem altogether without reason ; though 
it can hardly be literally true, when we look to the distance 
of time which intervened between the production of the play and 
the accusation. In the Apology of Plato there is an allusion to 
the prejudice excited in the young men by the representation 
given of the philosopher in this play. Nor had The Clouds 
been the only attack on Socrates by Aristophanes ; not to men- 
tion other comic writers who had made him the object of their 
humour. In the year 405, B.C., not more than five years before 
the prosecution, the play of The Frogs had been exhibited ; in 
which a pointed allusion is made to the influence of Socrates in 
terms of reprobation. 1 In the mean time, also, the same note had 
been struck ; for the play of The Birds was produced in the 
middle of this interval between The Clouds and The Frogs, in the 
year 414, B. c. ; and in that again the Athenians are warned against 
the corruptions and enchantments of the philosopher. 2 And it is 
very possible that many who lived to witness the formal accusa- 
tion of Socrates, might have received their earliest prejudices 
against the philosopher by what they heard in the theatre then — 
prejudices, too, which the course of events, the miseries of the 
Peloponnesian war, and the anarchy consequent upon it, may 
have ripened into exasperation. 8 For they saw their country 
fallen from its proud station in Greece, to the condition of a 

1 Aristoph. Ranee, 1487. 3 See Thucyd. iii. 82, 'Ey p.h yap 

2 Aristoph. Aves, 1282, 1554. tipv v V Ka " L dyaOois irpdyfiacriv, k. t. A. 



358 SOCRATES. 

dependent state ; and they were led to ascribe their misfortunes 
to a change of habits since the days of Marathon and Salamis — 
to their having deserted the palsestra and the field, and become, 
from a body of devoted patriots and soldiers, students of rhetoric 
and masters in debate. 1 During all this time, Socrates continued 
the unrivalled teacher of the youth of Athens ; increasing, 
indeed, in renown and popularity ; and surrounded by a number 
of students of philosophy and political science, from all parts of 
Greece. He had, in fact, converted Athens into a university of 
Greece. For though he had no professed school — no pgovTiffryg/ov, 
no "workshop of thought," as Aristophanes jocosely represents 
the scene of Socrates amongst his disciples — no regular place of 
meeting, such as Plato had in the Academia, and Aristotle in the 
Lyceum ; — there might be seen around him in familiar conversa- 
tion, in every part of the city, day after day, the statesmen, and 
orators, and generals of the Eepublic — philosophers of estab- 
lished repute from other cities — the sons of the noblest families 
of Athens as well as of the humblest citizens — and the resident 
foreigners and occasional visitors of the city ; some seeking 
instruction in the art of government, some investigating by his 
guidance the chief good of man, some studying the theory of 
eloquence and criticism, some exploring, by the light of his 
searching questions, the depth of metaphysics, and the subtle 
speculations of the earlier philosophers ; all according to their 
different pursuits, and in their different degrees, receiving infor- 
mation and general mental culture from the great Athenian 
sage. Those who clung to the thought of Athens in its days 
of military glory and empire, would painfully observe how great 
a change had taken place in the internal habits of the city. For- 
merly it was enough for the intellectual improvement of the 

1 In Xenoph. Mem. iii. 5, the younger institutions of their ancestors. The 

Pericles asks Socrates how the Athe- particulars mentioned are, want of re- 

nians are to be brought again to become spect to elders, neglect of bodily exer- 

enamoured of their ancient virtue, glory, cises, even to the ridicule of them, 

and happiness ; and afterwards he ex- insubordination to authorities, mutual 

presses his wonder how the state ever irritation, envy, quarrelsomeness, litiga- 

began to decline Socrates imputes tion, covetousness, incompetence of their 

their degeneracy to their neglect of the generals. 



STATE OF EDUCATION. 359 

youth, that in childhood he had the grammarian for his instructor, 
and, as he grew up to manhood, was consigned to the poets ;* 

roTg (mv yao Kcudag/oioiv 
&6ti bibaaxa\og oarig (podZsi, rota ft rfiuffiv dz Tot^rai 2 

Now even the slaves were becoming literary. The distresses 
of war had occasioned the addition to the roll of citizens, of 
many even from that class. And these might be seen, as the 
comic poet represents them, " each with his book, learning the 
clever things ;" 

Formerly, their wise men were obliged to leave the ignor- 
ance and rudeness of their own city, and learn Philosophy by 
foreign travel. Solon had brought back with him from his 
travels the wisdom of Crete and of Asia to enrich their code of 
laws, but had not given Philosophy a domicile at Athens ; had 
not affected domestic life there with its refinements. From that 
time, however, a change, introduced by the literary taste of 
Pisistratus, had gradually prepared the way for establishing a 
school of Philosophy at Athens. 4 Pericles, too, had given a great 
stimulus to the literary spirit by his own fondness for intellec- 
tual pursuits, and the society of intellectual men. In the midst 
of his active political life, he could find time and thought for the 
elaborate disquisitions of the ingenious persons whom he invited 
to him. He could spend a whole day in disputing with Prota- 
goras on so subtle a question as the theory of causation ; 5 such 
was the intense interest which he displayed in every thing- 
tending to the development of mental energy, and such the 

1 If we except the profession of the Poetry ; irpoaeiirofjiev 5t avrfi fir] /cat 

Sophists, when at its height of public riva <jK\-T)pbrr\ra 7]/j.Cov /cat aypouciav 

favour, skill in the composition of Karayvio, ore iraXaia fxiv rts hiacpopa 

Tragedy was the most highly rewarded 4>Chocro(p"ia re /cat 7rot7?rt/c^. 

of all talents at Athens. Plato, Laches, 2 Aristoplian> Ean . 1020 . 

183, b. p. 169. The poets of Athens, . . . . , „ <A __ 

. ' v ii • i c *i Anstophan. Ban. 1079. 

therefore, were naturally -jealous ot the r 

popularity of philosophers and sophists. * Aul - GelL vi ' 17 " Libros Athenis 

Plato, Bep. x. 8, apologizing for his disciplinary hberalium publico ad 

severity in dealing with the poets, Agendum pr*bendos, primus posuisse 

observes, that it is a quarrel of long _ dlcitur Rsistratus Tyrannus, etc. 

standing between Philosophy and ' 5 Plutarch in Pericl. 



360 SOCRATES. 

encouragement he gave to the change of taste then in progress, 
by his own example. In the person of Socrates was found the 
genius formed to preside over the growing taste for literary and 
philosophical refinement, and to give it the form of an estab- 
lished institution. What, therefore, were merely indefinite fears 
at the time of the exhibition of " The Clouds," assumed a more 
distinct character of alarm to ancient prejudices within a quarter 
of a century afterwards. The rapidity and violence of several 
successive revolutions of the government during the latter part 
of that interval, further prepared the minds of the people for any 
sudden outbreaks of party spirit, and made every man an object 
of suspicion to his neighbour. A democracy of an hundred 
years' existence 1 had been overthrown; and first an oligarchy of 
Four-hundred, then a tyranny of Thirty, established by foreign 
arms, in its place. Nor, as it had not been without fraud and 
bloodshed that the people had been spoiled of their "ancient 
liberty," 2 were they disposed to surrender it in quiet ; or 
were those who seized on the government able to retain it long 
on the same footing. A struggle ensued ; in which the indivi- 
duals of contending parties only sought to provide, each for his 
own aggrandizement and interest, or at least his own safety, 
under the constant expectation of some counter-revolution. 3 The 
people had found that some of those very persons who would 
never have been suspected of oligarchical views, had in the late 
changes taken part against the popular government ; so that 
they knew not, at last, whom to trust even of themselves. 4 We 
are not to wonder that an accusation of Socrates should have 
succeeded before an Athenian jury at this period of morbid 
sensitiveness of the public mind. 

An accusation of impiety was, we must remember, too, an 
accusation of a political offence. A change of the popular 
religion was a change of the fundamental constitution of a Greek 
state. And as in the absolute rule of a single despot, so in the 
tyranny of a multitude, the reputation of zeal for religion is 

1 Thucyd. viii. 68. 2 Thucyd. viii. 71, 72. 

3 Thucyd. iii. 82. tt&vtup 5' avruv atnop, k. t. A. 4 Thucyd. viii. 66. 



STATE OF EDUCATION. 361 

studiously maintained from policy, if from no higher motive, to 
throw around its arbitrary acts the reverence and fear due to the 
religious character. The teaching of Socrates was indeed 
eminently religious ; but it differed from what the state regarded 
as such. He proved the existence of an invisible divine power, 
wisely designing and governing all things ; and inculcated the 
duties of piety and morality as flowing from the belief of such 
an agency. Such clearly was not the state-religion. 1 This was 
no system of truth or morality. It was tradition and legend, 
and immemorial usage, and ritual observance. 2 And it was 
enough for a charge of impiety that Socrates rested Eeligion on 
other grounds. A pious Athenian, and yet not pious after the 
manner of the Athenians, was, in their view, an introducer of 
new gods. He might well be believed to be a worshipper of 
the clouds and the air, when he pointed out to them, that the 
gods would not receive the sacrifice offered by wicked men, 3 
that even their silent counsels were not concealed from the 
divine cognizance, and that justice was an indispensable duty of 
the worshipper of the gods. 4 

That the accusation further should be credible, as brought 
in this form, is not strange, when it is known that, during the 
Peloponnesian war, the worship of new gods had been introduced 
into the city ; as at Eome during the depression of its fortunes 
in the first years of the second Punic war. So greatly had the 
vicissitudes of fortune influenced the minds of men, observes 
Livy, describing this effect at Eome, — so great was the influx of 
religion, and that chiefly foreign, he says, into the state — that 
either the men or the gods appeared to have suddenly become 
different. So at Athens, it appears, the forms of superstition had 
been multiplied, under the pressure of civil and domestic calamity 
acting on the fears and credulity of the people. The strong re- 

1 Aristotle, Pol. v. 9. tur bellum et variabant secundae ad- 

2 Cic. de Legib. ii. 16. versaeq. res non fortunam magis quam 

3 Xenoph. Mem. i. 3. animos hominum ; tanta reh'gio, et ea 
. v . ,, . ' magna ex parte externa, civitatem 

4 Xenoph. Mem. l. 6. . ° .. \. . ' . . 

L mcessit, ut aut homines aut Dn repente 

5 Liv. xxv. 1. Quo diutius traheba- alii viderentur facti, etc. 



362 SOCRATES. 

proof which Euripides puts into the mouth of Theseus, of the 
austere life of Hippolytus, would seem to point at some ascetic 
devotees among the Athenians themselves, practising a more 
refined and scrupulous religion, distinct from that of the vulgar ; 

"Hdrj vuv av^st, xal df d-^v^ov (3ozag 
2/Vo/g KOLirrfhixi ', '0£<Z>sa r avaxr' £%a»p, 
Bax^si/f, noXkoov y gafi/adruv ri^otv %ait)/obg. x 

In Aristophanes 2 we find still more evident allusion to the 
introduction of new objects of worship, new fanatical rites, in 
which the women chiefly officiated, and in which a gross licen- 
tiousness mingled with the gloom and solemnities of barbaric 
superstition. 

Again, Education was intimately connected with politics in a 
Grecian state. The state took in hand its youthful citizens, and 
trained them according to its peculiar institutions, and in its 
own spirit. At least, in all the early constitutions, great atten- 
tion was paid to education. Lycurgus made Sparta a constant 
school of war to his citizens. So too Solon, though he had, with 
greater knowledge of human nature than Lycurgus, adapted his 
institutions to the people for whom he legislated, provided that 
the people should be trained to the system of laws prescribed to 
them. But this care of the early legislators had begun to be 
lost sight of in practice. 3 In Aristotle's day it had disappeared 
everywhere. 4 In Sparta it was still nominally reverenced. In 
Athens, an entire relaxation of the educational discipline had 
taken place already in the time of Socrates. Pericles, flattering 
the democratic spirit of the Athenians of his day, could boast 
of their ease from labours and the obligation of bodily exercises, 
and congratulate them on the courage which they could display 
at the time of action, without being inured beforehand by a 
course of hardy discipline. 5 But now, whilst the state was 

1 Euripid. Hippolyt. 952. <pav, p. 162. See this dialogue of Plato 

•2d r> ah* Arm t • . «™ throughout, on the subject of Athenian 

2 See Pax. 410, 428. Lysist. 389. -, *. 

a education. 

3 Lysimachus, in Plato's Laches, com- 4 Aristot. Pol. v. 7, 6\iywpovcn 
plains of their fathers having neglected irdvTes. 

their education, 6tl rjfids fxh eiW rpv- 5 Thucyd. ii. 39. 



STATE OF EDUCATION. 363 

remiss in not enforcing education according to its ancient regi- 
men, a new system had grown up, the offspring of the luxury 
and refinement of its days of imperial greatness. This new and 
unauthorized education was diffused throughout the mass of the 
inhabitants beyond the pale of the citizens. Solon's law imposed 
the duties of the exercises on the citizens, but excluded the 
slaves from the gymnasium. Now all classes were hearers of 
the philosopher ; the smith, the carpenter, the fuller, the dresser 
of leather, were engaged in discussing problems of ethics and 
politics, no less than the high-born and wealthy citizen, and the 
orator, and the statesman, and the general. This was an evident 
indication of a corresponding change in the government itself ; 
a change which really came to maturity not long after the time 
of Socrates, when the machinery of the government passed from 
the hands of the generals and the men of practical ability, into 
those of the orators of the republic, and when rhetoric, or 
oratory, became the master science, and only another name for 
politics. 1 

Those, then, whose attention had been drawn to the person 
of Socrates many years before, and had then only laughed at 
the exaggerations of the comic muse, might naturally begin to 
suspect, in the progress of events at Athens, that there was a 
real danger to the institutions of the country couched under the 
humorous mien and conversation of the real Socrates. They 
would now, as they watched his increasing influence and repu- 
tation, recal their early associations of the ludicrous with the 
name of Socrates, not with the good humour with which they 
were originally received, but with the undefined fears since 
acquired, in the course of their daily observation, of one in 
whose hands the destinies of their country seemed to be placed. 
They would probably then think that they had judged his case 
too leniently before as spectators, and that they were now called 
upon to pronounce authoritatively as judges, not so much from 

1 Aristot. Eth. Nic. x., 10, 18, 20. aofao-Twv ol £Trayye\\6fiepot. . . . ov yap 
Td 8e irokiTLKa {.irayytWovrai fih StSct- av t\\v o.vtt\v rfj prjTopacfj oi>8£ X ei P w ^ Tt '~ 
(TKeiv ol aocpiarral, TrpaTrei 5' avT&v oudeis, Oeaau. c. ult. 

dXX' Ol TT0\lT€v6p,€P0l, k. t. X. Tu>v 5e 



364 SOCKATES. 

the representations and arguments of the accusers, as from their 
own experience of the great change which their country had 
evidently undergone, and was still undergoing. Even indeed at 
the time of trial, nearly half of the great body of jurors were in 
favour of his acquittal ; and Meletus would have failed alto- 
gether, but for the speeches of Anytus and Lycon, men of popu- 
lar and rhetorical powers, who addressed the court in support of 
the charge ; so strongly did the weight of his personal character, 
and the interest which he had excited by his friendly and in- 
structive intercourse with every class of citizens, prevail in his 
favour. 

We should take into account, further, the general neutrality 
of Socrates on questions of politics, and his decisive energy on 
particular political occasions, in which he was called upon by 
the circumstances of his position to take part. Both lines of 
conduct would create enemies. Neutrality in a state distracted 
with parties is the most unpopular course which can be adopted ; 
however candid and reasonable the principle of such conduct 
may be, all parties look with jealousy at one who will not be 
associated with them in the guilt and the danger of party-strug- 
gles. They envy him his exemption from their violence, his 
reputation of candour, his chance of safety under every vicissitude 
of party-ascendency. Corcyra, as a state, was obnoxious to the 
other states of Greece for its neutral policy. So was the indivi- 
dual at Athens who kept aloof from public business, amidst that 
restless pragmatical spirit which actuated the state and its citi- 
zens. Athenians could not understand and appreciate the motives 
of one who abstained from the public assemblies, and the courts, 
and the theatres ; who shrank from all public offices, was a 
member of no faction or club, engaged in no trade, disregarded 
even his own domestic concerns, and lived a private man, where 
every one else was the servant of the public, busy with the 
affairs of the state, and incessantly pushing his own interests by 
his political activity. 1 The laws of Solon, indeed, inculcated the 

1 Thucyd. ii. 40. fyi re reus aureus tlkol (xt) eVSews yvOiva.1' fxbvoi yap rbv re 
oiKeluv #/xa kclI ttoXltlkuu eVi/ie'Aeta, /cat /nrjdev r&vde ixerix oVTa °^ K dTrpa.yp.ova 
eripois wpbs tpya rerpafi/xivott ra ito\l- dXX' &xp€iov vop.l$op.ev. 



POLITICAL CONDUCT OF SOCRATES. 365 

principle, that every one should take his side in the contention 
of parties. 1 Solon wished to interest the people in the main- 
tenance of the constitution which he had given them, and accord- 
ingly obliged them by penalties to attend to public affairs. 
This was evidently his reason for compelling their attendance in 
the assemblies and courts, as also for this singular provision. 
The increased action of the democratic spirit in the time of 
Socrates must have greatly fostered the opinion thus declared in 
their ancient laws ; and hence we find philosophers in general 
held in disrepute in Athens, on account of their inactivity and 
unconcern in public affairs. The busy Sophist, the orator, and 
the man of the world, censured them as pusillanimous, and indo- 
lent, and incapable of the duties of a citizen. Some of the early 
philosophers, indeed, had been distinguished as statesmen, and 
legislators, and generals. The Pythagoreans in Magna Graecia 
appear still to have sustained this character in some measure. 
But now philosophers were observed, for the most part, to lead a 
contemplative life of leisure, and to present a striking contrast to 
the general society of Grecian states. Plato takes every oppor- 
tunity in his writings of defending Philosophy from this calumny 
directed against the persons of its votaries, evidently treating it 
as a grievance which he had felt in his own case. Aristotle also 
indicates the prevalence of the same objection against philoso- 
phers at his day, w T hen he studiously maintains, that exertions 
of the mind in speculation may be regarded as even more 
really practical than those which are merely directed to external 
results. 2 Socrates, accordingly, was a puzzle to many of his con- 
temporaries. They wondered that he should freely dispense the 
treasures of his wisdom, and not convert it into a marketable 
commodity. Whilst they gave him credit for integrity, they 
regarded such a proceeding as mere folly. 3 They asked how he 

1 Plutarch, Solon, c. 20. 

2 Aristot. Pol vi. o. ' AXXd rbv irpaK- 3 Xenoph., Mem. i. 6, 11, 15. *tt 

TLKbv ovk avayKcuov, /c.r.X. Also Ethic. Sw/cpares, iyib to'l <re /j.ev bUaiov vofii^w, 

Nic. x. 7. The oration of Isocratcs <ro<pbi> de ovd' birwvTLovv, k.t.X . . . 

against the Sophists is addressed to the Kcu7rd\6j> irore tov ' AvTKpQvros ipo/xtvov, 

same popular calumny against Philo- k. t. X. Ibid, 
sophy. 



366 SOCRATES. 

could think to qualify others for public life without taking part 
in it himself, if he really knew what it was to be a statesman. 
But he was content, in reply, to point to the number whom he 
had laboured to render capable of public duties, as a more effec- 
tual service on his part to the state than a personal activity in 
himself. 

But though the general conduct of Socrates was to avoid all 
interference in affairs of state, he had shewn on one or two very 
important occasions his patriotic feeling, and the energy with 
which he could carry it into effect. He had served with distin- 
guished courage at Potidsea, Amphipolis, and Delium, as we have 
seen ; and proved himself on those hard-fought days, one who, 
as Pericles characterizes the Athenians, could philosophize with- 
out effeminacy, and, without being inured to the dangers of the 
field, could brave them at the moment of trial with no dimi- 
nished spirit. But still greater occasions of trial were those of 
civil exertion at home, to which he was called not long before 
the accusation of impiety. Perhaps one of the most memorable 
instances of resolute firmness which History presents, is to be 
observed in the fact, that when the uproar of faction was demand- 
ing the iniquitous condemnation of the generals who commanded 
at Arginusse, Socrates stood alone among his colleagues in office, 
and refused to put the question to the vote, as the epistates, or 
superintendent of the day, in the form proposed. 1 Each of the 
ten Athenian tribes had its turn of presidency in the Council of 
Five Hundred for thirty-six days of the year ; fifty out of the 
whole tribe being chosen by lot as its representatives during this 
period. These fifty were further subdivided into tens ; and each 
of these tens, under the name of proedri, served a week in suc- 
cession, as it was allotted, until the official term of the tribe was 
completed. Again, of these ten presidents, seven were appointed 
by lot to occupy the chair in succession during their week of 
office ; each one of the seven becoming in his turn epistates, or 
superintendent for a day. The tribe Antiochis, to which Socrates 

1 Xenophon, whose own reputation tjv ovk &v oX/acu. aWov ovZiva &vdpunrov 
for courage gives a strong sanction to virofiehai, Mem. iv. 4, 2. He alludes 
his opinion, says of this act of Socrates, in the same place to the story of Leon. 



POLITICAL CONDUCT OF SOCKATES. 367 

belonged, happened to be the presiding tribe on the occasion of 
the impeachment of the generals ; and it came to the lot of 
Socrates to be in the chair of office on the day when the question 
of their condemnation was so passionately debated. The gene- 
rals had nobly done their duty to their country, and gained the 
most brilliant victory which had been achieved at sea in the 
course of the war by the Athenian arms. But the crisis was an 
unfortunate one for them. Athens was then on the verge of 
ruin. The jealousy of parties was at its height. The hopeless- 
ness of recovering the lost ground by military strength at this 
time, gave an opening and encouragement to personal intrigue 
and the arts of an unscrupulous diplomacy ; and a victory, how- 
ever honourable to their arms, and hopeful as to the future, 
seems only to have been hailed with very doubtful congratula- 
tions by the struggling factions of the city ; each looking at it 
rather as it might act for, or against, his party — as it might tend 
to the strength of his rivals or their depression — than as a great 
public triumph. However this may be — for the event remains 
a matter of perplexity to the historian — the successful generals 
were brought to trial through the treachery of their own officers, 
on the specious charge of having neglected the collecting of the 
dead bodies of their men after the action. 1 The charge was spe- 
cious, because it was partly true, and was attested indeed by the 
very officers who were sent by them on that service, and who 
were now brought as witnesses against their commanders. It 
was true, so far as the endeavour to collect the dead bodies had 
been frustrated by a violent storm which followed the engage- 
ment. Still the endeavour had been made. The charge was 
further specious, because it appealed to religious prejudices as 
well as to the democratic spirit. The generals seemed to have 
been regardless of the solemn rites due to the dead, and of the 
persons and feelings of the lower orders of the people. The 
occasion, therefore, furnished abundant topic of invective to the 
demagogues ; and their addresses too fatally succeeded in obtain- 
ing an ungrateful and factious vote of death against the generals. 

1 Thucyd. ii. Plat. Apol. 28. 



368 SOCRATES. 

Socrates was threatened with criminal information by the orators 
of the people ; and the people themselves were urging on his 
assailants, and clamouring against him. Still he remained un- 
moved, and would not put the unjust question to the vote ; 
preferring the hazard of bonds and death to himself, on the side 
of the law and right, to a compliance with the popular will in an 
illegal act. 1 The iniquity was perpetrated ultimately in spite of 
his resistance ; but he at least did his utmost to prevent it. 

Such was his conduct under the ascendency of the demo- 
cratic power. Afterwards, when the oligarchy was established, 
and the Thirty were exercising their acts of cruelty and extortion 
without restraint, he was the first to give a check to their 
tyranny. In their career of confiscation and blood, they marked 
out Leon of Salamis for destruction. They conceived that the 
terror of their power would compel even Socrates to be a ready 
instrument to their rapacity ; and they were desirous also, doubt- 
less, to implicate him in the criminality of the act. Accordingly, 
they appointed him with four others to go to Salamis, and bring 
Leon to Athens, that he might be put to death. They were 
disappointed, however, in their expectation, so far as they 
depended on Socrates as an instrument in the dark deed. The 
order was executed, and the unhappy Leon was sacrificed to 
their cruel avarice and fears. But Socrates had no hand in it, 
land resisted it as far as he could. Unawed by their stern com- 
mand, he said nothing ; but as soon as he had left the 
Tholus, the place where the Thirty were assembled, he left 
his four colleagues to proceed on their bloody errand, and 
went home. He would not, indeed, have dared thus to dis- 
obey the order with impunity ; he would surely have felt their 
vengeance — for there is nothing that tyrants resent more than 
a clemency volunteered by the ministers of their cruelties 2 — but 
that happily that reign of terror was soon after put down. 

1 Plato, Gorgias. 
2 Herodot. 3. 6. Cambyses was glad ventured to reckon upon his return to 
that Lis order, given in a moment of better feelings ; and lie accordingly com- 
passion, to kill Croesus, was not obeyed ; mands, that they should be executed for 
but he could not forgive those who had their disobedience. 



POLITICAL CONDUCT OF SOCRATES. 369 

By these intrepid acts, Socrates had shewn that the philo- 
sopher, in declining the contentions of political life, did not 
incapacitate himself for its duties when the exigencies of his 
situation should require him to perform them. 1 As Thales had 
proved that the philosopher could, if he pleased, make money, 
by applying to that purpose his observations on the seasons, and 
his prognostics of an abundant crop of olives ; 2 so did Socrates 
defend Philosophy in his own person and by his conduct on these 
great occasions, against the imputation of inactivity and selfish 
ease. It is quite evident, too, that such a spirit as that dis- 
played in these remarkable instances, had he entered into poli- 
tical life, would have subjected him to violent collisions with 
the successive leaders of party at Athens. " You well know, 
Athenians," are the words which Plato's Apology puts into 
his mouth, " that had I long ago attempted to take part in 
political affairs, I should long ago have perished, and I should 
neither have done you any service nor myself. And be not 
aggrieved with me for saying the truth ; for there is no one of 
men that can be safe, in giving a spirited opposition either to 
you, or to any other popular government, and in preventing the 
occurrence of many unjust and iniquitous things in the state ; 
but he that would in reality fight for the right, must, if he 
would be safe but a little while, lead a private life and not 
engage in public business." 3 " Think you, indeed," he further 
asks, " that I should have lived for so many years, had I engaged 
in public business ; and had I, engaging in it in a manner 
becoming a good man, succoured the cause of right, and, as 
behoved me, made that the thing of greatest consequence ? Far 
from it ; for neither could any one individual of men." 4 

The time, then, appears to have arrived, when the accusation 
was brought by Meletus, for his exemplification of the truth of 
this observation in his own person. He had hitherto avoided 
the impending storm by the quiet tenor of his private life. But 
he had done enough to offend the partizans of either extreme in 

1 Plato, Apol, 32. 3 Plato, Apol., 31. 32. 

2 Cicero, Be Divin., i. 49. 4 Ibid. 

2 B 



370 SOCRATES. 

the state. Both extremes would be united against him in their 
enmity to all moderation ; for the ascendency of such counsels 
as his would have been a death-blow to their own reckless lust 
of power. Hence, they were readily disposed to concur in sacri- 
ficing him to their mutual resentments. And we thus behold 
the sad spectacle of one who had been the friend of every poor 
man at Athens, no less than of the rich and noble, requited 
with prosecution and death by those very hands conjoined in 
the unnatural act, which should each have warded off the blow, 
if inflicted by the other. The genius of Intolerance was indeed 
behind the scene, mixing the poisoned cup for its destined 
victim; an evil jealousy was exerted against him, which nothing 
short of the extinction of its object could appease. But the 
actors on the public stage of the trial were, at the same time, 
wreaking their own vengeance on a political opponent ; and the 
more exasperated against him, in proportion as, by his imper- 
turbable demeanour and real inoffensiveness, he seemed to defy 
their assaults, and to throw them back on the consciousness of 
their injustice and ingratitude towards him. 

Nor can there be any doubt, that there were many indivi- 
duals, whose pride he had hurt, whose ignorance he had exposed, 
whose ill-humour he had irritated, and who, such is the infirmity 
of human nature, would rejoice in the opportunity of revenge by 
the verdict of a public condemnation of his doctrine. In affront- 
ing the Sophists by his free discussions of their pretensions, he 
had excited, doubtless, the hostility of many of the higher order 
of citizens, their patrons and disciples. Many fathers of families 
too must then have been suffering from that corruption of public 
morals, which, under the teaching of the Sophists, had clothed 
itself with plausibilities of argument, and impudently arrogated, 
for its vain pretensions, the importance of Philosophy. Dis- 
obedient, profligate sons, lifting their hands against their fathers, 
and adding bitterness to their unnatural rebellion, by the hollow 
false-hearted principles on which they had learned to justify 
it, — forward, petulant youths, insulting the dignity of age by 
their pretensions to superior wisdom, and their turbulence, — 



PROSECUTION AND TRIAL. 371 

these were the fruits of sophistical education, which came home 
to every family at Athens. Few that felt the evil in their own 
homes, would stop to inquire whether Socrates was the teacher 
whom they had to blame for their suffering. Most would hastily 
conclude, that all such instruction of the young was pernicious ; 
and their offence at the mischievous doctrine of the Sophists 
would become a disgust against philosophy and philosophers. 

Some, indeed, would distinctly trace to Socrates the annoy- 
ance which they had experienced from particular individuals. 
There were many who had frequented the society of Socrates, 
with no sincere intention of profiting by his lessons — who 
observed his inquisitive manner, and its effect in convicting and 
refuting the errors of those with whom he conversed, and who 
endeavoured, for their own wanton gratification, to imitate him 
in their intercourse with others. These would take delight in 
confounding and perplexing others, and exposing and ridiculing 
their pretensions to wisdom. It is easy to conceive, that the 
superficial resemblance to the manner of Socrates in these 
persons, and the vexation produced by it, would excite angry 
objection against the real method of Socrates. 1 These persons 
would be pointed at as his disciples. These would be referred 
to as instances of the evil tendency of the teaching of the 
philosopher himself; the discredit of the spurious disciples 
being reflected on the master, to whom it belonged not in any 
degree. 

It appears, further, as might have been expected, that the 
doctrines of Socrates were studiously misrepresented at the time. 
Allusions or illustrations employed by him in his reasonings 
were construed into positive opinions on the subjects to which 
he thus referred. For example, when, inculcating honest 
industry, he quoted Hesiod, 2 saying, " Work there is none that 

1 Xenophon speaks of persons who ticular appears to have done, and would 

were pointedly corrected by Socrates, not be very scrupulous, with this angry 

fir] fiovop a iKeivos KokaaTf) pLov 'ivetca tovs feeling dwelling in their minds, as to 

Trdvr' olofjihovs eioivcu epwr&v rj\eyx €l/ - the mode of resenting the affront. 
Mem. i. 4, 1. Such persons would bear 
a grudge against him, as Anytus in par- 2 'Ae/yyefy U t' 6peidos. 



372 SOCEATES. 

is a scandal, inaction is the scandal," the captions absurdly but 
maliciously interpreted him, as applying the words of the poet 
to sanction the doing every thing, whether right or wrong, for 
the sake of gain. When he quoted from Homer the account of 
Ulysses silencing the uproar of the people, against the practice 
of employing worthless persons in the public service, it was 
represented, that he approved the coercing the common people 
and the poor by harshness and violence. 1 Again, in urging the 
necessity of looking to the qualification of those who should be 
appointed to office, and illustrating this by the fact, that no one 
would choose, by lot, a pilot, or carpenter, or flute-player, or any 
one, indeed, in matters where error was far less mischievous 
than in politics, — he was charged with encouraging contempt of 
the established laws, and exciting the young to acts of violence. 2 
And (which is the most invidious form of misrepresentation) a 
general charge of corrupting the young was thrown out against 
him, unsupported by any specific statements of the means of 
corruption which he employed. As in the polemics of later 
days, so in the controversy between Socrates and his assailants, 
the obloquy of general hackneyed terms of reproach was resorted 
to as the substitute for definite grounds of imputation. Thus 
were the off-hand allegations against all philosophers, — "that 
they searched into the things in the air, and the things under the 
earth, and rejected all belief in the gods, and made the worse 
appear the better reason," 3 — used as a cover, on this occasion, to 
the envy and malignity which shrank from the light and the 
evidence of facts. 

The accusation of Meletus, it will be observed, was dis- 
tributed into three heads : 1. Contempt of the established 
religion. 2. The introduction of new divinities. 4 3. The cor- 

1 Xenoph. Mem. i. 2. * Athenians preserved the same cha- 

2 Plato, Euthyphro, 3, 6. ws odv racter at the time of St. Paul in this 
KaiuoTOfxovvTos aov irepl r<x 6e?a, yiypair- respect, also, as well in their eagerness 
rat ravTrjv ttjv ypacprjv' koX ws diafiaXuiv after news; as is seen (Acts xvii. 18, 
dr) tyxerai els rb diKaaTTjpiov, etScbs 8rt £hwv SaifiovLuv doKe? KarayyeXevs dvai) 
euSidfloXa rot, roiavra irpbs tovs ttoXXovs. in their accusing him of setting forth 
P. 6.— Xenoph. Mem. i. 2, 9. " strange gods." 

3 Plat. Apol. 23, p. 54. 



PROSECUTION AND TRIAL. 373 

ruption of the young. The second of these charges requires to 
be more particularly noticed, because it has reference to a 
peculiarity in the conduct of Socrates which gave it a colour of 
truth. 

The mind of Socrates appears to have been deeply imbued 
with religious feeling. The observation of final causes particu- 
larly excited his interest; so much so, as to lead him to think 
that no other account should be attempted to be given of the 
phenomena of the world, but as they are the results of a wise 
and benevolent design. He delighted thus in contemplating 
every thing in a moral and religious point of view. He thought 
that the introduction of physical and mechanical causes into the 
study of nature, only perplexed and misled the mind. He had 
at first been greatly attracted by the speculations of Anaxagoras. 
What won his attention in the system of this philosopher, was 
its distinguished merit beyond all previous systems, in assigning 
Mind as the master principle of the Universe. But when he 
came to study the writings of Anaxagoras more closely, he was 
grievously disappointed, and threw up the system in disgust. 
For he found that it lost sight of the grand and true principle 
with which it set out, and, after all, constructed the Universe 
out of mere material and mechanical elements. 1 He saw, indeed, 
how futile, as to any real knowledge of the Universe, had been 
the inquiries of the early philosophers. As an Athenian, he 
participated, in some measure, in that general prejudice against 
physical science, which Athenians had ignorantly imbibed against 
all Philosophy, when they characterized it as idle talk and drivel- 
ling dotage. But as a genuine philosopher, in spite of his Athenian 
prejudices he saw and felt that there was a real moral agency 
pervading the world; and he judged that, by observation of this, 
principles of real use for the right direction of human life might 
be discovered. Tinctured too, as an Athenian, with the super- 
stition of his countrymen, and at the same time correcting it by 
his superior judgment and feeling, he was disposed to draw every 
phenomenon into his moral and religious theory of the Universe. 

1 Plato, Phcedo — Apolog. 



374 SOCRATES. 

To stop to inquire into any thing whether it might be explained 
on simple natural causes, or to doubt its moral design, would 
appear to his mind sceptical and profane. Hence, we see at 
once displayed in him the common character of the Athenian, 
in his dislike of physical science, and his susceptibility of super- 
stitious influences from the most trivial things ; and, on the 
other hand, the wisdom and religiousness of the true philosopher, 
in his constant devout disposition to refer all things to a provi- 
dential design and moral agency. 

It is well known how anxiously the heathens watched the 
most minute circumstances, not only in their religious rites, but 
in the actions of daily life, as intimations of the will of the gods. 
Not only dreams and visions, but flights of birds, the meeting 
any particular object, sneezing, a voice, a sound, and the 
like trivial things, were regarded with seriousness and awe. 
Socrates felt the mystic influence of such incidents ; only he 
thought more deeply on them than the generality, and that, — 
not with the vulgar emotions of fear or of hope, according as the 
omen might be interpreted, — but with calm and pious reference 
to the benevolent design which he attributed to them as divine 
intimations. Further, not only did he apply this sentiment to 
the outward circumstances of daily life ; but he also took into 
his view the state of his own mind. He conceived that he 
received at times mysterious signs distinctly perceptible to him- 
self, not indeed of any positive good to be expected from a 
particular course of conduct, but of precaution — warnings against 
evil concerning others as well as himself. These presages he 
interpreted, — or others perhaps, taking his account of his impres- 
sions in too literal a manner, have so represented it, — as a voice 
addressed to him on each occasion. Instances too, are alleged 
in which this divine voice was the means of saving him and 
those who obeyed its direction, from danger. In the retreat of 
the Athenians after their failure at Delium, it is said to have 
prevented his taking a particular road, and thus saved him, 
together with Alcibiades and Laches, from being pursued and 
overtaken by the enemy; whilst others taking another way were 



THE DIVINATION OF SOCBATES. 375 

overtaken and slain. 1 ; This circumstance, according to Plutarch, 
was a great occasion of the fame at Athens of the " demonion " 
— or " genius," as it was called by Latin writers, — of Socrates. 2 
To this voice is attributed his active devotion of his life to the 
moral reform of his countrymen by private and personal addresses 
to them, and his refraining, at the same time, from all political 
exertion. 

The name of a particular daemonion, or genius, was evidently 
not assigned by Socrates himself to these extraordinary presages, 
while he confidently declared their reality. It was rather the 
misconstruction of the vulgar, and of his assailants, interpreting 
what he affirmed generally of divine intimations, as assertions 
of the presence of some particular divinity ascertained by his 
own convictions, and distinct from the gods worshipped at 
Athens. Heathens, in general, were incapable of forming a 
notion of the Deity, but as a local and tutelary god. They could 
not rise to the sublime conception of the One universal Being, 
To AaipovM, the God in all the world, than whom there is none 
else. In the view of Socrates, this belief in a presaging voice 
addressed to his private ear, was nothing more than an exten- 
sion of the prophetic science, or divination of the heathen 
world, to practical purposes, and to the cultivation of religious 
feelings. 

It must be remembered, that the Athenians had their 
augurs or prophets among the regular officers of the republic, 
without whose presence no matter of public counsel or of war 
was ever transacted. These were the recognized interpreters of 
the Divine will. But Socrates claimed a special authority for 
the presages with which he was peculiarly favoured, and thus 
seemed to innovate on the science, and encroach on the esta- 
blished forms, of divination. He enjoined, indeed, a devout 
reference to the Delphic oracle, in all questions of hazardous 
conduct ; teaching that, whilst human reason was the guide in 
all matters of human power, in those, on the contrary, which 
were out of human power, as the future event of actions, resort 

1 Plutarch, de Hocr. Gen. 298. Cicer. Be Divin. i. 54. 2 Ibid. p. 299. 



376 SOCKATES. 

should be had to every means offered for exploring the will of 
the gods. He professed to have adopted his own course of life 
on the evidence of such communications. He advised Xenophon 
to consult the Delphic oracle, as to whether he should do well 
in accepting the invitation of Proxenus to join the expedition of 
Cyrus. 1 But with this reverence for the recognized sources of 
divine information, he combined a suspicion of the pretenders to 
Prophecy, who were countenanced by the popular superstition, 
— the Qeo/xuvTstg and ^/i^w^o/, — who abounded at Athens. 2 He 
relied rather on the sagacious auguries of his own mind, drawn 
from observation of some passing incident, or some rapid con- 
clusion respecting the consequences of actions — a kind of 
intuitive judgment and forecaste, mingling and confounding 
itself with his religious impressions, — a second hearing, as it 
were, — a perception of a voice unperceived by the common ear, 
mysteriously telling of danger to come from some particular 
course of conduct. Thus was a pretext given to his enemies to 
say, that he introduced "new divinities ;" whilst public opinion 
tolerated the grossest pretensions to divine revelations, and a 
system of mercenary imposture founded on them. Public 
opinion upheld the system of divination as it existed, with its 
external array of augurs, and prophets, and ceremonial. Socrates, 
on the contrary, led every man to consult the will of the Deity, 
not without devout preparation in the inward recesses of his own 
mind, nor without reference to his own obedience and moral 
improvement. 3 Superstition, doubtless, strongly tinctured his 
notions of religious duty. This made him construe many things 
into divine intimations, which were frivolous and irrelevant. 
Still he rose above the superstition of the popular divination, in 
the personal piety which laid hold of each occasion for its 
exercise and cultivation, and taught men to regard the Divinity 
as interested in the protection of the good, and ever present 



1 Xenoph. Andb. iii. 1, 4. Ovalas airo[3\£7rovcrLv tj^Cjv 61 6eol, dWa p.T) 

2 Plato, Apol. 22. c. p. 51. trpos rr\v \pvxhv, av tls daios ical dUaios, 

3 Plato, Alcib. ii. 150, p. 99. Ka* k. r. \. 
'yap av dewop e'irj, el Trpbs ra dQpa kclI ras 



THE DIVINATION OF SOCRATES. 377 

to the words, and actions, and even the silent thoughts of 
men. 1 

Xenophon appears to have faithfully stated the difference 
between the popular divination and that professed by Socrates, 
in the following account : " He introduced nothing new beyond 
others who, acknowledging the reality of divination, make use 
of omens, and voices, and objects presented on the way, and 
sacrifices. For these do not conceive, that the birds, and the 
persons that meet them, know what is expedient to those who 
divine by them, but that the gods, by means of them, signify 
this. And so he held. But the generality say, that they are 
dissuaded and persuaded by the birds, and the objects that meet 
them; whereas Socrates spoke of it as he thought. For he said 
that it was the Divinity, To Aai^oviov, that gave signs to him. 
And to many of his intimates he prescribed to do some things, 2 to 
forbear other things, on the ground, that the Divinity had presig- 
nified it to him ; and it was to the advantage of those who took 
his advice, whilst those who rejected his advice had to repent it." 8 
But how great was the change from the practical devotion of 
the mind here taught by Socrates, from that popularly enter- 
tained at Athens ! The history of divination, as it was regarded, 
not at Athens only, but throughout Greece, is but a picture of 
the hopes and fears, and conscious guiltiness, if not of the envy 
and malignity, of the weak and corrupt heart of man, exalted 
into attributes of the Divine Being, and interpretations of the 
Divine Will. Let us only hear Solon, as described by Herodotus, 
speaking of the Deity as invidious and turbulent, and as guided 
by no fixed course in the disposition of human affairs ; and we 
may judge what a task he had enterprized, who entered into 
conflict with this inward and subtile idolatry of human passions, 
established by the heathen system of divination. It was indeed 
teaching divinities new to Athenian ears, when Socrates incul- 

1 Xen. Hem. i. 1, 19. Kai yap eiri- ceived intimations of ivhat was to he 
uekeiadcu deovs evopn^ev avdpdjiruv, oi>x done; whereas Plato expressly says the 
8v rpbirov oi iroXhol vopi'£ov<xiv, k. t. A. directions were only negative. 

2 Xenophon here differs from Plato's 3 Xenoph. Mem. i. 1, 3, p. 3. Xenoph. 
Apology, in saying, that Socrates re- Apol. 13, iy<h 5e tovto datp.6vt.ov k<x\<2. 



378 SOCRATES. 

cated an inward reformation of the character of those who would 
look for the favour of the gods, or expect a special interposition 
and direction from the benevolent Principle which guides the 
course of the moral world. 

Whereas, too, the popular divination was employed on the 
most trivial occasions, and made the substitute for the proper 
exertion of men's faculties on matters cognizable by them, 
Socrates differed from this prevalent notion of the subject. 
He contended that, where the line of conduct was plain, men 
should use the best of their judgment in acting, — that they 
should use their experience and reason in learning what the 
gods had given them to learn by such means, and only have 
resort to consultation of the Divine will by the extraordinary 
means of divination, where the results of conduct were uncer- 
tain. Thus might he be construed as dissuading men from the 
use of divination, when he only dissuaded from an improper use 
of it, and exhorted to a rational activity. 

We may see from the story of Aristodicus of Cyme, how the 
practice existed among the Greeks, of endeavouring to obtain 
from the oracles sanctions even to iniquities and impieties. 
Aristodicus consults the oracle whether he may surrender an 
unhappy fugitive ; and the oracle permits him, dexterously 
reproving, by the very permission, the attempt to cast the 
burthen of personal responsibility on the oracle itself, and to 
cover an immoral act with the veil of religious duty. 1 Divina- 
tion, in fact, was indolently resorted to in the heathen world, to 
relieve the mind of the labour and anxiety of thought, and the 
searchings of conscience. And Socrates addressed himself to the 
correction of this practice, by recommending, as we have seen, 
exertion of the judgment, and the acquisition of information on 
all matters within the sphere of human reason. He would thus 
provoke the hostility of many a professed diviner, who made 
a trade of his art, and would find individuals of this class ready 

1 Herodot., i. 158, 159. The same suited, also, on frivolous matters, such 
is illustrated in the story of Glaucus in as the petty thefts of Amasis. Herodot. 
Hei'od. vi. c. 86- The oracles were con- ii. c. 174. 



THE DIVINATION OF SOCKATES. 379 

to join in the outcry raised against him, of innovation on the 
popular Theology. 

The jealousy of the Sophists in particular, the very class 
with whom the accusation of Meletus identified him, would also 
swell the popular prejudice against him on this head. For 
these claimed, among their pretensions, to be regarded as endued 
with a predictive sagacity, rendering them expert practical guides 
respecting the future. 1 Socrates would offend them in this point 
in two ways ; both as counselling persons to have recourse to 
their own judgment, and the ordinary means of information, on 
questions to which human reason was competent; and as bid- 
ding them seek Divine direction by the rites of Eeligion on all 
matters beyond the compass of man's understanding. For in 
both respects would the Sophists find their course interfered 
with. The use of men's own judgment, or the appeal to the 
signs of the Divine will, would equally lessen the value for those 
counsels which they pretended to impart. 

What added still further to this invidious feeling was, that 
the reputation of Socrates now eclipsed theirs throughout Greece. 
And Socrates appears himself confidently to have appealed to 
this public estimation of his character against the partial cen- 
sures of his countrymen at the time of his trial. He vindicated 
his assertion of Divine intimations specially granted to him, by 
referring to the oracle of Delphi as having honoured him with 
its distinct approbation. Chaerephon, in the devoutness of his 
admiration of his master, had, on some occasion, consulted the 
oracle respecting him, and obtained an answer that Socrates was 
the wisest of men. The authenticity of the anecdote has been 
questioned. But the introduction of it in the two Apologies 2 
may be taken as a voucher of its substantial truth. It, at any 
rate, shews the favourable opinion which had been conceived of 
him out of Athens itself ; that, as Lycurgus had been compli- 
mented by the verdict of an oracle, so the same tribute of public 
applause might, with equal probability, be assigned to Socrates. 

1 Isocr. c. Soph. 2, 4, irepl r&v fxe\- 2 Xenopli. Apol. p. 249. Plato, Apol. 

\ovtwv fxev eldevai TrpoaTroiov/ievovs. p. 48. 



380 SOCftATES. 

According to Laertius, the sentence of condemnation was 
carried by a majority consisting of 281 votes. The number was 
little more than sufficient to decide the question on that side ; 
for it only exceeded the number of votes of acquittal by three. 
" Had but three votes only fallen differently," says Socrates him- 
self, in the Apology of Plato, " I should have been acquitted." 
Nor, indeed, would Meletus alone, without the aid of Anytus 
and Lycon, (he is made there confidently to declare) have ob- 
tained even a fifth part of the votes to save him the penalty of 
a thousand drachmas, affixed by the law to an unsustained prose- 
cution. But when the penalty of death was further put to the 
vote, and he was found unwilling to propose the substitution of 
any other penalty, such as a fine or exile, but evinced his indig- 
nant contempt of their unjust sentence, by asking rather, in his 
ironical way, instead of even a slight punishment, the highest 
honour of the state, — that of a public maintenance in the 
Prytaneum, — the multitude of the jurors were so exasperated 
by the unbending spirit thus displayed, that eighty addi- 
tional votes were given on the hostile side, determining the 
sentence of death. So evidently was the whole case ruled by 
passion, and the arts of demagogues exciting the people to 
treat it as a slight on their majesty, rather than as a cause 
in a court of justice. Otherwise, it could not have happened, 
that when the previous question of guilt had been carried 
with nearly an equal number of dissentients, the severest 
penalty should have obtained such an accession of voices in its 
favour. 

The little solicitude shewn by Socrates in regard to his 
defence from the accusation has been already remarked. As 
he strongly disapproved the affected artificial Ehetoric of his 
times, and the practice of appealing to the passions against the 
judgment of the hearer, so neither would he study beforehand 
what he should say on the occasion of his trial. Twice had 
he essayed (he observes to Hermogenes) to consider what he 
should say in his defence ; and as often had he been prevented 
by those secret divine intimations to which he habitually re- 



HIS CONDEMNATION. 381 

ferred his conduct. 1 Nor again would he receive the proffered 
services of friends in pleading his cause. The celebrated orator 
Lysias composed an oration for this purpose. On reading it, he 
expressed his admiration of it, but declined it as unsuitable to 
him. When Lysias wondered that he could admire it, and yet 
say it was unsuitable, he observed, in his usual manner of illus- 
tration, by an apposite case ; " Would not also fine coats and 
shoes be unsuitable to me \ " Plato, however, it is said, could 
not be restrained from appearing in his behalf, and made an 
effort to address the court. But the uproar was so great, that 
on his uttering the words, " ascend the bema/ ; he was met with 
the cry, " descend," and forced to abandon the attempt. 2 

So neither, again, would he resort to those appliances to the 
feelings which were usual in the Athenian courts. The Athenian 
juryman expected that the defendant should come before him in 
the character of a suppliant, and entreat his clemency rather than 
claim his justice. He was to be assailed with prayers and tears, 
no less than with arguments addressed to his understanding. 
But Socrates would not condescend to these methods of persua- 
sion. He would not produce his wife and children in the court, 
to excite compassion, or bring forward his connexions and friends 
to intercede in his behalf. He felt it unbecoming in him at his 
age, and with his reputation as a philosopher, to supplicate for 
his life. It would have given to his whole previous demeanour 
the appearance of insincerity and hypocrisy. It would have 
shewn that dread of death, against which all his teaching had 
been directed. 3 It would have been an evidence that he dis- 
regarded the sanctity of Eeligion, in trying to influence his jurors 
to decide by favour against their oaths, and so far would have 
substantiated the charge of Meletus against him. 4 For the same 
reason, he had refused to offer to submit to a mitigated penalty, 
when challenged, according to the practice in the Athenian 
courts, to propose his own estimate of the offence. Afterwards, 

" l Xenoph. Mem. iv. 8. ''Ecprj yap 7)817 XPV axoireiv 6 tl aTroXoyrjaeTai, k. t. X. — 

MeX^rou yey pa/JLfA€i>ov avrbv tt\v ypacprjv, and Apol. 2, et sqq. 

avrbs aKovwv clvtov irdvTa jxaXKou r) irepl 2 Diog. Laert. in vit. 

rrjs dixrjs diaXeyo/xevov Xeyeiv avrQ, <bs s Plato, Apol. i. p. 79. 4 Ibid. p. 82. 



382 SOCKATES. 

indeed, he softened this bold vindication of his merits, by adding 
in the same ironical manner, that he could perhaps pay the fine 
of a mina of silver, and would therefore fix that amount of 
damages ; or that as Plato, Crito, Critobulus, and Apollodorus, 
suggested the sum of thirty minse, and would be good sureties 
for the payment, he would fix the latter amount. 1 To have 
seriously proposed any such estimate, would, in his opinion, have 
been an admission of his guilt. 2 

He displayed throughout the trial the same calm and cheerful 
temper which characterized his ordinary behaviour. There were 
in his manner, even at that solemn crisis, touches of the same 
ironical humour, the same half-earnest, half-playful strokes of 
argumentative attack, which had given so much interest and 
point to his daily familiar conversations ; and when the trial was 
over, he evinced no further emotion than the indignation of a 
sincere and honest man, at the malicious and mischievous arts by 
which the result had been accomplished. He was sustained by 
the consciousness, that no crime had been proved against him ; 
whilst his assailants must feel the reproaches of conscience for the 
real impiety and iniquity of which they had been guilty ; some 
for having instigated others to bear false witness against him ; 
some for having themselves borne this false witness. The disgrace 
of the condemnation fell not on him, he asserted, but on those 
who had passed such a sentence. He consoled himself with the 
thought, that it was the will of the Deity, and it was best for him 
now to die ; that, though condemned by his present judges, like 
another Palamedes, he should receive from posterity that verdict 
of approbation which was withheld from Ulysses, to whose suc- 
cessful plot the life of that chief was sacrificed. 3 Availing him- 
self also of the prophetic power which the popular belief attri- 
buted to the words of a dying man, he warned his countrymen, 
as he left the court, that they were embarked in a course which 
must involve them in bitter repentance. 4 He concluded his 



1 Plato, Apol. 38 b. i., p. 88. 3 Xenoph. Apol. 24. 

2 Xenoph. Apol. p. 23, KeXevd/xevos 4 Plato, Apol. 
{nroTLfjiacrdai. 



HIS IMPRISONMENT. 383 

address with the following striking admonition : " I have only 
this request to make. As for my sons, when they shall have 
grown up, punish them, I pray you, by troubling them in the 
same manner in which I have been in the habit of troubling 
you, if they appear to you to concern themselves either with 
money or any thing else in preference to Virtue. And if they 
would seem to be something when they are nothing, reproach 
them, as I do you, that they take no concern about what they 
ought, and think themselves to be something when they are 
nothing. And if you do this, I shall have suffered justice at your 
hands, both myself and my sons. But it is now time to depart ; 
— for me to die — for you to live — but which of us is going to a 
better thing, is uncertain to every one except only to the Deity." 1 
In his way from the court to the prison to which he was now 
consigned, he was observed with eye and mien and step com- 
posed, in perfect unison with his previous address. On per- 
ceiving some of those who accompanied him weeping, " Why is 
this/' he said ; " is it now that you weep ? did you not long ago 
know, that, from the moment of my birth, the sentence of death 
had been decreed against me by Nature? If, indeed, I were 
perishing beforehand in the midst of blessings flowing in upon 
me, it would be plain that I and my kind friends would have to 
grieve ; but if I terminate my life at a time when troubles are 
expected, for my part, I think you ought all to be in good heart, 
as feeling that I am happy." 2 Apollodorus, whose admiration of 
his master amounted to an amiable weakness, complained to 
him of the great hardship of his suffering by an unjust sentence. 
Acknowledging the affectionate feeling thus shewn to him in a 
familiar manner, by passing his hand over the head of his 
attached disciple, he, at the same time, gently reproved him, 
saying, " Would you then, my dear Apollodorus, rather see me 
dying justly than unjustly ? " and smiled at the question. On 
seeing Anytus pass by, he could not forbear, it is said, the ex- 
pression of a strong censure on the conduct of that individual 
towards his own son. He foretold, what the unhappy result 

1 Plato, Apol. ad Jin. 2 Xenoph. Ajpol. 27. 



384 SOCRATES. 

proved too true, that the heart of Anytus would one day be em- 
bittered by the evil fruits of that low and unworthy education to 
which, with mercenary views, he had subjected his son, a young 
man with whom the philosopher had formerly conversed, and 
who had seemed destined for better things. 

The execution of Socrates, by the poisoned oup, would have 
followed immediately on his condemnation, but for the peculiar 
circumstances under which the trial had taken place. It was 
after the commencement of the Delian festival ; an annual com- 
memoration, of the safe return of Theseus and his devoted com- 
panions to Athens, from the fatal labyrinth of Crete, and the 
release thenceforth from the bloody tribute exacted by Minos, 
by the mission of a vessel to Delos with sacrifices to Apollo, and 
other religious rites. When the Priest of Apollo had once 
crowned the stern of the sacred vessel with the festive garland, 
it was not lawful to pollute the city by a public execution, until 
the solemn pomp had been performed, and the vessel had re- 
turned. This ceremony had been performed only the day before 
the trial of Socrates. Thus he obtained the respite of thirty days 
between his trial and execution. 

These were days of high interest and importance not only to 
his sorrowing friends, but to the cause of that admirable practical 
philosophy which all his previous life had inculcated. This 
compulsory leisure he devoted to studies which had never 
hitherto engaged his attention, in composing a hymn in praise 
of Apollo, and in rendering into verse some fables of iEsop ; 
under the influence of a religious scruple, as he said, lest 
he should depart without having fully complied with a divine 
command, often presented to him in dreams, r xi 'Sux.pareg, fiovamfiv 
<rohi Ttal Igyafyv, by simply interpreting it, as he had all along 
done, as a call and incitement to philosophy, the highest work 
so designated ; whereas its intention might be, that he must 
further exercise himself in the work of the Muse in its ordinary 
popular sense of poetic composition. 

Now indeed, in his prison, with the immediate prospect of a 
violent death before his eyes, he could discourse with an irresis- 



THE PRISON SCENE. 385 

tible cogency of argument, of the vanity of human things, and 
the real happiness of man, as consisting in the cultivation of the 
spiritual and immortal principles of his nature. He had pro- 
fessed his whole life to be a " meditation " of death. He now 
had the opportunity — which, as a philosopher (could the voice of 
natural instinct have been silenced), he would most have 
desired — of realizing, by his own example, that view of death, 
according to which his thoughts and teaching had been studiously 
framed and directed. Unlike his successors in the schools of 
the Stoics, he did not advocate a doctrine of suicide, much as he 
depreciated the importance of the present life of man in the 
world. With that good sense which restrained his religion and 
his philosophy from running into fanaticism, he held it to be 
impious in any one to release himself, by his own hand, from 
that post of duty in which the Deity had placed him. 1 Though, 
however, he had not courted death, he felt that, in his circum- 
stances, he was called, consistently and resolutely, to go through 
this last act of his public profession. He seems, indeed, to have 
rejoiced in being thus enabled to sum up his philosophy in one 
great result, enforcing every observation and argument of his 
previous teaching, by demonstrating, so far as human reason and 
example could avail for the purpose, the absolute supremacy and 
power of the great principles of Moral truth. The occasion was 
one which the genius of Plato would not fail to seize, as most 
felicitous for the development of its own enthusiastic and tran- 
scendental interpretation of the lessons of Socrates. Accordingly, 
in that most exquisite of his Dialogues, the Phcedo, he has 
invited us to the couch of Socrates, on the last sad morning of 
his imprisonment, to listen to the philosopher, with the chill of 
death almost upon him, discoursing on the Immortality of the 
soul. The affectionate disciple doubtless shed natural tears over 
his dying master. But he sought also to elevate his own philo- 
sophy to the dignity of being the dying confession of the great 
sage of Athens. And he wished, further, that it should speak, 
as it were, the funeral oration over him to whom it was indebted 

1 Plato, Pliado, p. 61, c. Ov fA& <!aws (3idaeTai avrov' ov ydp (paac defj.LTdi> eTvai. 

2c 



386 SOCRATES. 

for its earliest inspirations, and pour its own libation on his 
tomb. Thus he has especially elaborated the last scene of his 
master's life, and made us contemplate with the deepest interest 
the death of Socrates, not only as an act of heroic self-devotion 
and patient martyrdom to the truth taught by the great sage 
himself, but as a splendid episode in the dramatic development 
of his own philosophy. 1 

During his imprisonment, Socrates was not denied the solace 
of receiving his friends, and conversing with them day after day. 
Early each morning might be seen a company of devoted friends, 
whom nothing could separate from him, assembled at the hall of 
justice, where the trial had taken place, and which was close to 
the prison, watching for the jailor to open the gate and admit 
them. Being admitted, they would commonly remain with him 
in the prison until evening, engaged in earnest and instructive 
conversation. His wife and children, too, appear to have been 
constantly with him. 2 He was importuned by these affectionate 
followers to suffer them to effect his escape. Crito earnestly 
entreated him to be allowed to execute a plan which he had 
concerted for rescuing him. Simmias, the Theban, also brought 
a sum of money with him to Athens for that purpose. Cebes 
and others were equally ready with their resources. They 
argued, that, so far from being at a loss what to do with himself 
1 out of Athens, as he had said on his trial, they could ensure him 

1 Yet we may well believe that this home, and afterwards wrote it out at 

Dialogue contains the substance of what his leisure; questioning Socrates again, 

Socrates really discoursed on the solemn on his return to Athens, about anything 

occasion itself. For there can be little that he might not have recollected, and 

doubt, that much of what he had said so correcting it. Such may be pre- 

was noted down at the time by one or sumed to have been the way in which 

more of those present, and subsequently the substance of the Phcedo was also 

drawn out at length, with the omissions preserved and transmitted, and we may 

supplied, and corrections made, after assume, accordingly, that we have in it 

fresh communication with those per- a faithful record, on the whole, of the 

sons. scene itself and the argument ; though 

It is expressly stated with respect to perhaps often retouched by the hand of 
another Dialogue, the Thecetetus, that Plato, and gradually wrought up to the 
the person who received the account of finished state in which we have re- 
it from the mouth of Socrates, made ceived it. 
notes of it immediately on his going 2 Plato, Phcedo, p. 60, a. 



THE PRISON SCENE. 387 

friends in Thessaly, and many other places, who would most 
gladly welcome him, and protect him. But to none of these 
importunities would he yield. He answered that, while he 
highly estimated their kindness, he was pledged to obey reason 
only, and the Laws, and that he saw no ground in his present 
circumstances for taking a different view of his case. As for 
the duty of providing for his children, by preserving his own 
life — a consideration which Crito appears to have strongly 
pressed on him — this was not now a matter for him to consider ; 
it was for those to consider, who, as his Athenian judges, treated 
life and death as such light concerns * for his part, he must look 
simply to what was right or wrong to be done. 1 Thus steadily 
and calmly did he persevere in his resolution of awaiting the 
utmost extremity. 

At length it was announced that the Theoric galley had been 
seen off Sunium, and might very shortly be expected to arrive 
at Athens. Crito proceeded in anxious haste to the prison ; and 
being well known to the jailor from his frequent visits there, 
obtained admission at a very early hour. He found Socrates 
asleep ; and sat by him in silence, wondering to see him sleep so 
soundly in so much trouble ; until he at length awoke to receive 
the fatal intelligence. This he received with the same composure 
as if it had been some ordinary communication. His only 
answer to Crito was, that he was quite resigned to the will of 
the gods, if it were so ; but that he had been persuaded by a 
dream that the vessel would not come thai day, but the follow- 
ing one. His reliance on dreams as divine intimations has been 
already mentioned. He told Crito it was well that he had not 
waked him up ; for he was dreaming that a woman of noble 
form, clothed in white, came to him and called him, and said 
to him in a line from Homer, slightly altered in its ending ; 

On the third clay to deep-soiled Pthia thou mayst come. 2 



1 Plato, Crito, p. 48, c. 
Iliad , ix. 363. "H^a-H nev TpLT&Tto <l j dir)v efAftcSKov iKol^rjv. 



38S SOCRATES. 

The event, at any rate, accorded with his expectation. It 
was not on that day, but on the following one, that the sacred 
vessel reached the harbour of Piraeus ; and the day after that 
was appointed for the execution. 

By the dawn of that day, the sorrowing party again met at 
the accustomed place, and were informed by the jailor that the 
Eleven — the officers who superintended the public executions — 
had given orders that the chains should be taken off, and that 
Socrates should die on that day. 

It is interesting to know who the individuals were of that 
party, thus assembled at this last solemn interview with their 
loved master and friend ; some of whom indeed are not without 
note in the subsequent history of Philosophy. 

There was Phsedo, with whose name the Dialogue is inscribed ; 
and who gives the account of the interview to a friend ; a youth 
of a noble family of Elis, who having been carried a captive to 
Athens, and there sold as a slave, had been attracted by the 
teaching of Socrates, and, by means of the friends of Socrates, 
had been ransomed from that state of extreme degradation. 
Of the Athenians present, were Crito, with his son, Critobulus, 
the youthful Apollodorus, remarkable for his childlike affec- 
tion to Socrates, Antisthenes, iEschines, Hermogenes, Epigenes, 
Ctesippus, Menexenus ; of the Thebans, Simmias and Cebes, 
who are the chief interlocutors in the Argument, and Phsedon- 
das ; of the Megareans, Euclides and Terpsion. Such are the 
names expressly mentioned, as forming the company actually 
present. The absence of two important persons, Aristippus 
and Cleombrotus, is explained, by their being said to have 
been in iEgina at the time. And why, it would naturally be 
asked, were not Plato and Xenophon there ? Nothing indeed is 
said of Xenophon ; and the omission of his name has been 
imputed to a feeling of ill-will towards him on the part of Plato. 
But this is asserted without reason ; for Xenophon was then 
in Asia ; having gone in the previous year, 1 as a volunteer, to 
join the expedition of the Ten Thousand Greeks, whom Cyrus 

1 Diog. Laert. in vit. Xen. 



THE PRISON SCENE. 389 

the Younger had enlisted, in his attempt on the throne of his 
brother Artaxerxes. As for Plato himself, the reason of his 
absence is given in those few touching words, uxdruv 8k, 
ol'Mu, rjSsvsi. He was at Athens ; but " he was sick." The 
scene was in truth too trying for his feelings ; yet he would 
not have it supposed by any who should inquire, who were 
the friends present, that he, on whom the loss would press 
most sorely, was wanting in an act of duteous affection and 
respect to their common father and friend. His grief, it would 
seem, was too deep to be expressed, and his hand shrinks from 
the attempt. 

After being kept waiting some little time, they were admitted. 
They found the philosopher already loosed from his chains, 
with Xanthippe and his youngest child with her, by his 
side. By his desire they conduct her home ; the good Crito 
entrusting her to the care of his attendants, amidst cries of pas- 
sionate grief which had broken forth afresh from her, at the sight 
of them now come to bid their last farewell. 

What the emotions were of that company of devoted dis- 
ciples and friends, chiefly young men, enthusiasts in their 
admiration of their master, now gathered around him in such a 
place for the last time, to listen to a voice, which, for many a 
long day past had interested and delighted them, we can only 
faintly imagine. They were all bewilderment ; at one moment, 
weeping, at another, laughing ; in a strange state of pain and 
pleasure commingled ; as they looked at him, their beloved 
teacher and guide, now about to be withdrawn from their society 
for ever. 

The occasion naturally leads to the conversation which ensues, 
on the condition of the soul after death, and the theory of its 
immortality ; Socrates interrogating and arguing with all his 
wonted energy and vivacity; and they, on the other hand, 
eagerly awaiting his exposition of each point in the discussion ; 
hanging with earnest attention on every word as it proceeds 
from his lips, as if dreading that, when he should be gone, no 
one would remain, able to sustain an argument of such deep 



390 SOCRATES. 

interest to them, or answer objections with which it might be 
assailed. 1 

He had not yet left the conch on which he had been lying, 
when they came in, but was sitting up rubbing his leg now 
relieved of its chain. He opened the conversation, by express- 
ing the pleasurable sensation which he experienced at that 
moment in the transition from the previous pain ; remarking to 
them the strangeness of the close connection subsisting between 
pleasure and pain ; how invariably one was found to precede the 
other ; so that, had iEsop thought of it, he might have repre- 
sented the fact in a fable, relating that the god, finding he 
could not reconcile them from their state of war, had linked 
them together by their heads ; whence it was now impossible 
for one to appear anywhere without being immediately fol- 
lowed by the other. Thus mentioning iEsop, he is led to 
explain to them why he had employed himself during his 
imprisonment, in poetry, a matter so unusual to him ; and in 
particular, had directed his attention to versifying fables of 
iEsop. He then put down his feet, and took his seat, prepared 
to enter on the discussion belonging to the occasion, and on 
which the thoughts of all were anxiously intent. 

He had scarcely begun, when Crito interposed to tell him, 
that the man who was to administer the poison, had been 
urging him to say, that he must not converse much ; as the 
exertion would render the poison more lingering in its effect, 
from the warmth thus produced in the body; for that, in conse- 
quence of this, he had been obliged sometimes, in his experience, 
to administer it twice over. " Let him then," replied Socrates, 
" only be ready to perform his duty, and to administer it twice, 
or even thrice, if it should be necessary." 

Kesuming thus the conversation, he endeavours, at the out- 
set, to impart to them the comfort of that assurance with which 
his own spirit was supported and cheered, that, when he should 
depart hence, he should go to a happier world, and a condition^ 

1 JPkcedo, p. 173. 'AXXo. tto\v /jlc.Wov ai&puTrcov ovdels d^ius clSs re rovro 
<po8ov/JLa.i, fir] avpiov T7]i/u<dde ovkItl rj TroirjcraL. 



HIS ARGUMENT ON THE SOUL. 391 

more favourable for perfecting that discipline, which as a philo- 
sopher, having the attainment of wisdom for his great end, he 
had been ever pursuing through life, but under great difficulties 
and hindrances from the body. There were the necessities of 
the body demanding attention to them ; there were the vulgar 
pleasures of sensual indulgence ; there were the delusions of 
the senses : all these things, obstructions to the philosopher 
arising from communication with the body. %He might have 
good hope therefore, that, when freed from the bonds and the 
pollutions of the body, his soul would be enabled to realize to 
itself the purification and the perfection which it had before 
sought in vain ; and death therefore might be gladly welcomed 
by him as the introduction to it. 

But what if Death be not, as the argument has assumed, a 
mere separation of soul and body, but an extinction of the 
soul — what if, on its departure from the body, it should be 
dispersed, and vanish like breath or smoke ; and this should 
be the end of its existence ? Such is the objection now raised 
by Cebes. 

In answering it, Socrates first states, as an opinion tradi- 
tionally received from of old, the point which he is about to 
prove, that the souls born into this world proceed hence to 
Hades, the region of the departed, and come forth again from 
Hades here ; and thus are born from out of the number of the 
dead. Then, that such is the fact, he argues on two grounds : 
first, on the principle of contrarieties as the origin and cause of 
all generation ; and in the next place, as consequent on the 
theory of Knowledge as consisting in Keminiscence. 

With regard to the principle of contrarieties ; if it were not 
evidenced, he observed, in a continued generation of the living 
and the dead, in alternate sequence of one from the other ; in 
like manner as cold and heat, greater and less, sleep and waking, 
just and unjust, etc., follow, as contraries, one from the other, in 
each pair of instances ; if, instead of this, all went on in one 
direction to the opposite, and there were no return; that is, if all 
died, and there were no return from the dead to the living ; all 



392 SOCRATES. 

life would thus, at length, be at an end ; and there would be but 
one uniform spectacle of death throughout nature. 

Again, if all Knowledge, so far as it has for its object the 
real and the true, must be regarded as Eeminiscence, men must 
have lived in another state before their appearance in this world. 
Unless this should be granted, it would be impossible to account 
for their possession of such knowledge. For their experience in 
the present life does no more than reveal to them its existence 
in their minds ; and no time in the present life can be pointed 
out in which they acquired it. 

The pre-existence. of the soul, however, being conceded ; it 
still remains to be proved that it exists after Death. This 
indeed follows, as Socrates alleges, from the admission of its 
pre-existence ; for, how could it, according to the last argument, 
be generated again from the dead, unless it were still living after 
death ? But, as the objection recurs, that the soul in going forth 
from the body may evaporate and be dispersed, he shews more 
distinctly the futility of such a supposition. This might be the 
case, he argues, if the soul were of a compound nature ; but 
must be impossible, if the soul appears to be altogether simple 
and uncompounded. And that it is such, he concludes, from 
its power of apprehending those simple essences entirely ab- 
stracted from everything sensual and bodily, which are discernible 
by the intellect alone, apart from, and beyond, the perceptions 
of the senses ; such as the notions of equality, honour, right, etc., 
the uniform, permanent and invariable standards and tests to 
which it refers in each instance the reports of the senses, and 
thus forms its judgments of the truth of things. The soul then 
truly lives, according to its proper nature, when it devotes itself 
to the contemplation of these immortal and divine essences, 
detaching itself from the bonds of the body, and from all sen- 
sual contagion, to the utmost, even whilst it is, as now in this 
world, connected with the body. Hence he draws the confident 
hope for himself and for all who have, like him, truly philoso- 
phized, that their souls will depart from this world to the invi- 
sible region, as to its congenial place ; and there be happy, in 



HIS ARGUMENT ON THE SOUL. 393 

the enjoyment of that freedom for which it has been longing, 
from the error, and folly, and fears, and wild desires, and other 
evils of humanity. 

There was then silence for some time ; Socrates himself 
musing in thought. But observing Cebes and Simmias speak- 
ing to each other, he asked them if there were anything in what 
had been .said that did not satisfy them ; the subject, he ad- 
mitted, was still open to many difficulties and objections, and 
he was ready to go along with them in the further discus- 
sion of it. On learning that they were only reluctant to trouble 
him, in consideration of the occasion, he remarked with a quiet 
laugh and some expression of surprise, that he could hardly 
hope to convince others, if they were not convinced, that he did 
not regard the occasion as a calamity, or one to irritate him ; 
they must therefore think nothing of that ; but go on question- 
ing him, as long, at least, as the Eleven would permit it. They 
then stated the objections which had occurred to them. 

That of Simmias was drawn from the theory of the older 
physical philosophers, which described the nature of the soul 
under the notion of "Harmony;" signifying by this term, that 
the soul was nothing in itself; but simply a result of the com- 
position and adjustment of the several parts of the body, and 
tempering of the various elements of which it consists. An 
illustration of it under this point of view was derived from 
the structure of a musical instrument. As the harmony or 
musical tone of the lyre resulted from the composition of its 
parts, and the due tension of its strings ; so was the soul, they 
asserted, the effect of a certain arrangement of the component 
parts of the body, and mixture of the elements of moisture and 
dryness, heat and cold, and such like opposites, combined in 
it. And as when the lyre was broken up, the harmony must 
perish along with it, so must the soul be supposed to perisli 
with the destruction of the body ; notwithstanding the fact, that 
Harmony itself is of a higher and more divine nature, in com- 
parison with the lyre, or the organization from which it results. 

The objection of Cebes amounted to this ; that the argument 



394 SOCRATES. 

of Socrates, as yet, had only proved that the soul was more last- 
ing than the body, and would survive the destruction of the 
body : it did not prove that it would last for ever. He illustrated 
his point from the supposition of a person having worn out, in 
his lifetime, many garments in succession, which he had woven 
for himself. And it might as well be asserted, he maintained, 
when the man died, that he was still in existence, by producing, 
as evidence of the fact, the last garment which he had made, and 
contending that, because the less durable then remains, therefore 
the man himself has not perished. Tor, in like manner, the 
soul might have worn out and survived many renewals of the 
body, and yet not necessarily survive the body at last. It may 
have often died, and have been as often generated again, and yet 
perish at last in the course of these alternations ; so that no one 
could feel sure at any time, as to his death at that time not being 
his end, unless the soul could be shewn to be altogether immor- 
tal and indestructible. 

These difficulties in the question thus put forward by the 
two disputants, produced at the moment a sort of consternation 
among the party, as if the argument had now been quite over- 
thrown. They waited anxiously for the reply of Socrates. 
Noticing the effect on them, but himself undisturbed by the 
objections, he stroked with his hand the head of Phsedo, who 
^as sitting on a low seat near him, and pressing together the 
locks on his neck, he said, " To-morrow, Pheedo, you will cut off 
these fair locks." "So it seems," said Phsedo. "JSTot so," he 
replied, " if you would obey me ; to-day, I must cut off mine, 
and you, these, if our argument should come to an end, and we 
cannot revive it ; and if I were you, and the argument should 
escape me, I would bind myself by an oath, like the Argives, 
not to suffer my hair to grow long again before I should fight the 
battle over, and vanquish the argument of Simmias and Cebes." 1 
Then making some observations cautioning against the weakness 

1 In allusion to Herodot. i. 82, where recovery of Tbyrea, after their defeat 
the Argives are described as making by the Lacedsernonians in their defence 
such a determination in regard to the of that disputed territory. 



HIS ARGUMENT ON THE SOUL. 395 

of giving way to a feeling of general scepticism, because an 
argument to which one has trusted has been proved unsound ; 
and bidding them look more to the truth than to him as its 
advocate, and contend against him, if he seemed to them 
to say what was not the truth, lest, deceiving them as well as 
himself, he should depart, like the bee, leaving the sting be- 
hind ; he proceeds to the refutation in order of each of the 
objections just urged. 

The notion which represents the soul as Harmony, implying, 
he argues, that the soul is of a compound nature, implies also, 
that it has not existed before it appeared in human form, and is 
contradicted, therefore, by the former conclusion asserting its 
pre-existence ; whereas, in the instance adduced of the lyre, the 
lyre itself, and the strings, and the notes, are produced first, and 
the harmony, which is the last in the production, is, on the other 
hand, the first to be destroyed. Again, Harmony admits of 
degrees, and of more or less in quantity ; but one soul is not 
more a soul in degree or quantity than another. Nor, on the 
theory which asserts the soul to be Harmony, could there be 
any such thing as vice ; all souls must be equally good, all 
equally virtuous, according to that theory ; since Harmony must 
follow that of which it is composed, and cannot be at variance 
with itself; it cannot become otherwise than Harmony. But 
in the soul we find a conflict and opposition between its various 
principles; reason, as the governing power, dictating to the 
passions; and the passions struggling against reason for the 
mastery ; so that the notion of Harmony is utterly inconsistent 
with that of the soul. 

The objection raised by Cebes required Socrates to shew, 
that the soul is not only immortal but indestructible. The 
proof of this involves, he says, nothing less than an inquiry into 
the subject of Generation and Corruption, or into the causes of 
all that is effected throughout the Universe. Sketching the 
history of his own searchings into the subject, he states, how 
he came at last to the conviction, that there was no adequate 
cause to be assigned for any thing, but the one essential notion 



396 SOCRATES. 

or abstract nature ; the presence of which constitutes a thing 
that which it is ; as, for example, whatever is honourable, is 
so, from the presence in it of the essential notion, the honour- 
able itself ; whatever is great, from the presence of the essential 
notion of greatness itself; and so in every thing. If this be 
granted, it must follow, that nothing can admit the presence 
of any essential nature ; or (in the language of Plato, idea) 
contrary to that essential nature, or idea, which constitutes it ; 
and remain the same. In things themselves (as before shewn, 
in referring to the argument from the principle of contraries), 
contraries proceed from contraries ; but it is not so with essen- 
tial contrary natures. These cannot but recede from the pre- 
sence of their contraries, and depart undestroyed. Snow, for 
instance, as he observes, recedes before the presence of heat ; it 
cannot remain what it was, and become both snow and heat ; 
but must either recede or be destroyed before the presence of 
heat. Or fire, on the accession to it of cold, must be displaced 
or destroyed, but cannot remain as both fire and cold. Or even 
when two things are not contrary themselves, but import in 
them contrary ideas, they must, in like manner, exclude those 
ideas wherever they are present. Such, then, is the case with 
regard to the soul and the body. Though not contraries in 
themselves, they import essentially contrary natures, the soul 
bringing along with it the idea of life wherever it is present, 
and thus excluding the idea of death ; so that, besides being 
immortal, the soul must, as such, be also indestructible. Ac- 
cordingly, when Death comes upon the man, that which is 
mortal of him dies ; but the immortal goes away sound and un- 
corrupted, receding before the presence of death. 

" If then," says Socrates, in concluding the argument, " the 
soul is immortal, it needs care, indeed, not for that time only 
which we call living, but for all time ; and the danger would 
even now seem to be dreadful, if one should neglect it. For if 
Death were a riddance from every thing, it would be a gain to 
the evil to be rid at once, both of the body and their own evil, 
with the soul ; but now, since it appears to be immortal, there 



HIS DEATH. 397 

can be no other refuge from evils, and no safety, except in 
becoming as good and as wise as possible. For the soul goes to 
Hades, possessing nothing but its education and nurture ; which 
indeed are also said most to avail the dead, either for their 
benefit or their hurt, on their journeying thither." 

But, as if, after all, he still felt impressed, that something 
more than philosophy, and the subtilty of argument, is required 
for a full conviction on the great subject which he has been 
discussing, that the truth must, in fact, descend to us from 
above, and cannot be found in the depths of the mind of man ; 
he sets before them, as the sum of the whole, a parting admoni- 
tion to prepare themselves for that moral retribution which 
awaits the soul when it passes hence into another state of 
being, in the form of a mythical description of the unseen 
world; declaring the judgment to be hereafter pronounced on 
each soul, according to its former life; the punishment of the 
evil on the one hand ; and, on the other, the perfect felicity of 
those who have lived piously, and purified themselves to the 
utmost by philosophy, and the pursuit of all virtue. 

He then rose to proceed to the bath, as an immediate prepa- 
ration for his death ; when Crito detained him for a while, to 
ask his last commands about his children, or any other matter 
in which their services might gratify him. He replied, " that he 
had nothing new to say beyond what he had ever been saying — 
that, by attending to themselves, they would most gratify him 
and his, as well as themselves, in all they might do, though they 
might even make no promise now ; but that, if they neglected 
themselves, and were unwilling to follow in the track pointed 
out in all that he had said to them up to this last occasion, all 
that they could do would be of no avail, however much, and 
however earnestly, they might promise at the present moment." 1 
Crito assented to this advice, but in his eagerness still to do 
some act of kindness to his revered friend, subjoined, " But in 
what way are we to bury you ? " This mode of speaking of his 
burial, gives occasion to a very characteristic reproof from him, 

1 Plato, Phcedo, p. 115, a, et sqq. 



398 SOCRATES. 

of this solicitude on the part of Crito. " As you please, 7 ' was his 
answer, " if at least you can take me, and I do not escape from 
you." Then gently smiling, and looking off to the surrounding 
company, he added, " I cannot, my friends, persuade Crito, that 
I am the Socrates that is now conversing, and ordering every 
thing that has been said; but he thinks that I am that man 
whom he will shortly see a corpse, and asks how you should 
bury me. But what I have all along been talking so much 
about — that when I shall have drunk the poison, I shall no 
longer stay with you, but shall, forsooth, go away to certain 
felicities of the blest — this I seem to myself to have been saying 
in vain, whilst comforting, at the same time, you and myself. 
Bail me therefore to Crito the opposite bail to that which he 
bailed me to the judges ; for he was bail for my staying ; but do 
you be bail for my not staying when dead, but going away ; that 
Crito may bear it more easily, and may not feel aggrieved for 
me, as if I were suffering something dreadful, when he sees my 
body either burning or being interred ; nor may say at the burial, 
that he lays out, or carries out, or inters Socrates. For," he con- 
tinued, turning himself again to Crito, " be assured, excellent Crito, 
that the speaking improperly is not only wrong in itself, but also 
produces some evil in the soul. However, take courage, and say 
that you are burying my body; and bury it as may be agreeable 
to you, and in the manner you may hold most lawful." 1 

He then went into another apartment to bathe, Crito follow- 
ing him, whilst the rest of the party awaited his return. After 
bathing, he received his children — and the females of his family. 
Having conversed some time with these in the presence of Crito, 
and given them his final commands, he dismissed them, and 
came out again to the assembled friends. This affecting inter- 
view had occupied a considerable time, and when he returned, 
it was near sunset. He had not long sat down, when the officer 
of the Eleven presented himself, and respectfully intimated to 
him that the fatal moment was at hand. The noble and gentle 
demeanour of the philosopher during his imprisonment had won 

1 Plato, PJicedo, p. 115, a, et sqq. 



HIS DEATH. 399 

upon this man ; and used as he had been to scenes of execution 
and horror within those walls, he was struck by the contrast in 
the case of Socrates, and bursting into tears as he gave his 
message, turned himself away, and retired. Socrates himself 
was touched by this demonstration of considerate feeling. "Fare- 
well, you too," he said, " we will do as you bid ; " then addressing 
his friends, " How courteous the man is ! through all the time 
he would come to me, and would converse with me sometimes, 
and was the best of men ; and now how generously does he weep 
for me !" He then called for the poisoned cup. Crito's affection 
would still have delayed it, for he urged that the sun was not 
yet gone down, and that others on the like occasions had not 
used such despatch, but had supped and drunk beforehand as 
they pleased. Socrates answered that this might be reasonable 
for others ; for him it was reasonable not to do so ; and persisted 
in requiring the cup to be brought. The process of bruising the 
hemlock took some time ; but at length the man who was to 
administer the poison came with it now ready for the draught. 
He calmly inquired what he was to do ; and, being told that he 
was only to walk about after drinking it, until he found a heavi- 
ness in the legs, and then to lie down, he took the cup into his 
hand without the slightest change of colour or of countenance. 
But before he put it to his lips, partly, it seems, from religious 
feeling, and partly in humour, he further asked whether he 
might make a libation to any one from the cup. JSTor did even 
his usual quaint manner of putting a question, which he knew 
would somewhat surprize the hearer, forsake him on this 
occasion; for he looked at the man, at the same time, with 
that peculiar glance usual to him, which his contemporaries 
designated by the word ravgqdbv, denoting its resemblance to 
the manner in which the bull looks around him with the 
head downward. Learning that the whole draught was not 
more than sufficient for the fatal purpose, he said, "At any 
rate one may, and ought to pray to the gods, that the migra- 
tion hence to those regions may be prosperous ; which indeed 
I do pray, and so may it be ! " With these words, he 



400 SOCRATES. 

drank off the poison with the most perfect composure and 
readiness. 

At the sight of this, the bystanders could no longer command 
their emotions. Their tears flowed profusely. Some rose up 
from their seats — Crito set the example — and covered their 
faces, to give vent to their sorrow. The youth, Apollodorus, who 
had never ceased weeping, now sobbed aloud. Every heart 
felt broken, only Socrates himself remained unmoved. He 
gently expostulated with them for this outburst of grief, saying, 
" What are you doing, my dear friends, so strangely ? I indeed 
sent away the women not least on this account, that they might 
not offend in such a way ; for I have heard that one ought to 
die amidst auspicious sounds : I pray you, therefore, be tranquil, 
and bear up." This rebuke had the effect of repressing their 
tears. The heaviness which he had been led to expect from the 
working of the poison now began to come on ; and he left off 
walking, and reclined, with his face upward, and covered over. 
The torpor gradually spread towards the upper regions of the 
body — the lower parts becoming, one after the other, congealed, 
and insensible — until it reached the heart. In this interval, he 
uncovered himself, and said, " Crito, we owe a cock to Esculapius ; 
pay it, I pray you, and neglect it not ;" intimating probably, by 
this allusion, that now all the diseases and disquietudes of life 
were at an end, and that he was about to be restored to real and 
pure existence by the death of the body. These were his last 
words. Crito asked whether he had any thing more to say, but 
received no answer. There was no further indication of life, 
but a motion of the body. The executioner uncovered him, 
and they observed his eyes fixed ; upon which Crito, faithful in 
the last respectful attentions to his beloved friend, the now 
departed philosopher, closed the mouth and the eyes. 

Thus died Socrates, when he had now completed his 
seventieth year, B.C. 400, or 399, in the full vigour of a healthy 
old age ; happy in his own estimation, and in that of his admir- 
ing disciples, in having terminated his life in so glorious a 
manner, with unimpaired faculties of mind and body, and after 



HIS DEATH. 401 

a defence sustained with so much truth, and justice, and 
fortitude. 1 

His death spread dismay at the moment among those who 
had been most conspicuous in their attachment to the philo- 
sopher, as they naturally dreaded the overflowings of that 
malignant spirit which had swept down their master. The 
chief of these appear to have fled to Megara, where they could 
reckon on finding a refuge from Athenian hostility, and a home 
with their fellow-disciple, the friendly Euclides. It is remark- 
able, however, that Isocrates, timid as he was by nature, should 
not have scrupled to remain at Athens, and to testify his affec- 
tionate regret for his master, by appearing the next day in public, 
clothed in mourning. 2 But with the fall of its great victim, the 
spirit of persecution was sated for a time. An act had been 
perpetrated, to which the eyes of all Greece would be intently 
turned ; and the greatness of the sacrifice seems at the moment 
to have absorbed the attention of its agents and instruments, in 
the contemplation of it and its possible effects. If we may 
believe the representation of subsequent writers, shame and 
repentance soon followed the cruel act ; and those who were 
most ostensibly involved in its guilt, were either banished or 
sentenced to death, or laid violent hands on themselves. Of the 
banishment of Anytus, and the death of Meletus, we are told by 
Laertius that Antisthenes was the immediate cause. In what 
way he was instrumental to the death of Meletus, is not stated. 
But with regard to Anytus, Antisthenes is said to have occasioned 
his banishment, apparently without the intention of doing so, by 
a stroke of practical humour. For meeting with some young 
men from Pontus inquiring for Socrates, whose fame had 
induced them to visit Athens, he conducted them to Anytus, 
who, as he observed to them, was " wiser than Socrates ; " upon 
which, the indignation of the bystanders was excited, and they 
drove Anytus forth from the city. 8 He fled to Heraclea ; but 
there found no peace, being forced by public proclamation to 

1 Xenoph. Mem. iv. 8 — Apol. 32. Plato, Phcedo, ad Jin. 
2 Pse lido Plutarch. X. Orat. Vit. s Dlog. Laert. in Vit. Antisth. v. 140. 

2 D 



402 SOCRATES. 

leave the city forthwith. 1 Though, however, these individuals 
soon after received the retribution due to their offence, it would 
not follow that they suffered from their countrymen on account 
of the part they had taken against Socrates. The ascendency of 
another political faction (and Athens was ever fluctuating 
between contending parties) would be quite sufficient to account 
for their overthrow and desperation. On the other hand, the 
testimony of Plutarch is explicit to the point, though he mentions 
no individuals by name, that the sycophants who had assailed 
Socrates, became the objects of popular hatred to such a degree, 
that none would associate with them in any way, not even to 
return them an answer when addressed by them, and that 
at last they hanged themselves, being no longer able to endure 
the public execration. 2 His friends, indeed, performed the last 
obsequies to his remains ; but his fellow-citizens afterwards con- 
curred in honouring him, by erecting a brazen statue of him, the 
work of Lysippus, in the Pompeium, and expressing their sorrow, 
by closing the public gymnasia for a while. 

This, at any rate, is certain, that persecution, as it ever does, 
overwrought its part in the case of Socrates. It oppressed, 
indeed, the individual, but it gave the seal of martyrdom to the 
cause in which he had been engaged. It produced a temporary 
intimidation, under which men would hear less of the name and 
teaching of Socrates openly avowed, but throughout which the 
admiration and love of the heroic philosopher would be cherished 
in secret, and his doctrine would be fostered in the shade, to 
appear in the sunshine of a future day. If the Athenians had 
desired to plant the root of philosophy in their city, they could 
not more effectually have clone so, than by their violence against 
Socrates. Such, in fact, was the result. Philosophy henceforth 
obtained an Athenian naturalization and name ; and the schools 
of Athens may date their period of nearly a thousand years from 
this memorable act, which, in its intent and spirit, fiercely but 

1 Diog. Laert. in vit. Socr. ii. 5, 43. fj.er€fie\7]0r) .... /cat rAos anplrovs 

2 Plutarch, de Invid. et. Od. Op. viii. direKTetve. xiv. 38 ; also Augustin. de 
p, 128. — Diodorus Siculus says, 6 drjfxos Civ. Dei, viii. 3. 



GENERAL EFFECT OF HIS TEACHING. 403 

blindly endeavoured to extinguish there the very profession of 
philosophy. 1 

\ The cause, however, in which Socrates had been engaged, 
was too true, for any opposition to it, though conducted with the 
greatest prudence, to have been long successful^ It had also 
already advanced too far, and interested too many persons in the 
maintenance of it, to be put down by a sudden blow. The 
burning of a book, or a formal condemnation of the opinions of 
a writer, are but futile means, as experience shews, of suppres- 
sing obnoxious doctrines. How much less could opposition 
avail, where, as in the case of Socrates, the offending doctrines 
had been scattered over, not the pages of a book, but the strenu- 
ous exertions of a long life — already engraved in characters 
which no obliterating hand could reach, no flame consume — and 
doubtless so worked into many a mind, as not to be distinguish- 
able from its own proper convictions — doctrines too, so confirmed 
by the noble example of their teacher, in carrying them out to 
their full consequences by his death ? For the death of Socrates, 
it should be observed, was not simply a test of his sincerity in 
his teaching. It was this, and still more. It was the ultimate 
and decisive opposition to those false principles, against which 
every action and discourse of his life had been directed. He 
had been all along exposing the presumptuousness and vanity of 
the principles on which men ordinarily judged and acted. He 
was now further to shew, that this opposition on his part was 
not to be daunted by those principles, when set in formidable 
array against his own life ; and that, professing a low estimate 
of the present life, he would not disown or shrink from that pro- 
fession at the moment of greatest trial. 

If we inquire, accordingly, what was the substance of the 
positive teaching of Socrates, we must address ourselves to the 
contemplation of his active life, and his resigned patient death. 
He had no design of establishing philosophy as a literary pursuit 
or intellectual pastime ; though he probably foresaw, that that 
taste for inquiry into truth which he was ever awakening, must 

1 The schools of Athens were closed in the reign of Justinian, a. c. 529. 



404 SOCRATES. 

soon lead to the formation of a philosophical literature at Athens. 
He already witnessed, indeed, the commencement of such a 
literature, the result of this excitement, if it be true that he had 
read the Lysis of Plato, and observed respecting it, " How much 
the young man makes me say that I never said ! " 1 He wished 
rather to divert men from the vanity of setting themselves up as 
philosophers, and make them employ their thoughts in learning 
and investigating, instead of prematurely commencing at once 
as well-informed persons and teachers of others, with crude and 
superficial notions and principles. 

Jb If we look, then, to the course of his practical teaching — to 
the general tenor of his conversations and actions, and the 
example throughout of his life and death — we shall find that his 
whole labour was directed to the establishment of true moral 
and religious principles, in opposition to the false and mischiev- 
ous principles which, he observed, were commonly acted upon 
and avowed in the world. The excellence and supremacy of 
self-knowledge was what he was ever inculcating ; and of self- 
knowledge, not as a matter of intellectual curiosity, or for its 
value as a science, but in order to self-government and to happi- 
ness. He found that this was the last kind of knowledge which 
men ever thought of acquiring ; that they had, in fact, no concern 
about it ; or that if they were reminded of its necessity, they 
presumed on their possession of it already. His first effort, then, 
was to open the minds of men to a perception of the value of 
this knowledge, and of their own need of it. The questions 
which he would put — the refutations which he addressed to the 
various propositions or conclusions elicited from others in the 
course of his conversations — the perplexities to which he would 
reduce them — and the unsatisfied state in which he would com- 
monly leave them, after exciting their doubts — all had a direct 
tendency to convince men of the insufficiency of their intellec- 
tual acquirements, and of their want of some more adequate and 
availing information. 2 To the same purport was his disparage- 

1 Diog. Laert. in vit. Plat. xxiv. <x<p68pa itiaTeveiv eldevcu ovd' &r/cei//cu. 

2 Xenoph. Mem. iv. 2, 36. 'AXXa . . . lb. 39. cppovrifa, fxr] kp<xthjtqv ■§ p.oi 
ravra [ikv, Zcpr] 6 'ZioKpdrrjs, tcrios 5ta to criyav tavb'vvevo) yap d.7rAcDs ovdev etdevai. 






GENERAL EFFECT OF HIS TEACHING. 405 

merit of physical science, and of all merely speculative knowledge, 
in comparison with that which was useful for human life. For 
he was far from an utilitarian, in the modern sense of that term. 
He did not value particular studies, because they ministered to 
the necessities or conveniences of human life, or undervalue 
them because they had no such bearing. But he saw that his 
clever and ingenious countrymen were studious of intellectual 
refinement — that they delighted in the specious, and the admir- 
able, and the subtle, more than in the solid and the unostenta- 
tious qualifications of the good member of a private family and 
the useful citizen. He was aware, too, from his own acquaintance 
with the existing physical philosophy, how imperfect that know- 
ledge was, how entirely hypothetical, and incapable of practical 
application. We must make allowance, therefore, in estimating 
his objection to speculative science, for the polemical spirit in 
which he assailed a branch of knowledge then, at once, so barren, 
and so encroaching in its claims on public attention. We must 
regard him as preparing the way for the due cultivation of the 
other, the higher as well as more important knowledge, that of 
man's own nature, then so little thought of, and so neglected. 
This seems to be invariably his design on every occasion, what- 
ever may be the immediate purport of his discourse, p- 

When he came to direct the minds of men, once awakened 
to the importance of moral study, to the subject itself of human 
nature, he had to encounter on the very threshold the most 
perverse notions. All their maxims of life were based on the 
absolute importance of the present life. The body, and its 
present appetites and desires, were regarded as the whole of 
man. The tyrant, in the enjoyment of absolute power to gratify 
every passion without restriction or penalty, was considered as 
the apt representation of the highest human felicity. All men's 
plans of life accordingly were directed to the acquisition of 
power for themselves. They studied to improve their external 
circumstances, and not themselves. Then their religion was 
merely the fear of mysterious powers influencing the prosperous 
or adverse events of the present world, and which were therefore 



408 SOCRATES. 

to be conciliated or appeased by offerings and vows. Socrates set 
himself strenuously to refute these vain presumptions. He 
argued the folly of supposing, that men really accomplished 
their own wishes in gratifying each prevailing inclination. He 
shewed, that whilst they did what they pleased at the moment, 
they did not in fact attain that pleasure which they sought ; and 
led them therefore to surmise, that there must be some end of 
human pursuit beyond the gratification of the passions, and 
further, some ultimate end to the whole sum of the active 
energies of the soul, beyond the present life, and distinct from 
all bodily associations. But he not only suggested such a 
thought by shewing the reasonings on the opposite view of 
human life to be inconsequential and absurd ; he further 
practically refuted the prevailing fallacies on the subject, by his 
own example on the other side. He proved to the world, 
by divesting himself of all the worldly accessories of happiness, 
and depending exclusively on the internal resources of his mind 
and character, and by his perpetual cheerfulness under those 
privations, that happiness did not result from externals, or from 
the body, but from the internal nature of man, nor from any 
thing positive and absolute in that nature, so much as from its 
state of discipline and command over the appetites of the body. 
Theories of morals were yet to be formed. It remained for 
jPlato to erect the true and sublime standard of human conduct 
in the perfections of the Divinity, and for Aristotle afterwards 
to shew the application of the law of habits to the subject, and 
construct a system of Ethics. Socrates has the merit of having 
prepared the way for these developments of the subject, by de- 
monstrating the folly of seeking the ideal of happiness in any 
enjoyment of the body, or in any thing present. 

So also as to Eeligion, though he could not advance, in his 
conceptions of the retributive justice of the Divine Being, 
beyond the circle of darkness which limits the natural observa- 
tion of man, he proved the absurdity of supposing that mere 
external punishment was the only suffering undergone for 
offences committed. Secret faults, as he pointed out, did not 



HIS MORAL AND RELIGIOUS TEACHING. 407 

escape with impunity. He appealed to the remorses of con- 
science, to shew how surely, however invisibly, wrong-doing 
was visited with its punishment ; and whilst in his own mind 
he concluded that there would be a future state, in which each 
man would receive the merited consequences of his actions, he 
must also have excited, in the minds of his hearers, a strong 
though undefined apprehension of a period of general retribution 
after death in another world. At least they must have seen that 
it was not so certain, as they may have once supposed, that, 
though a present punishment may have been evaded, punish- 
ment would not follow at a future day. In well-disposed minds, 
there would thus be a foundation laid of a doctrine of the 
Immortality of the soul. Under the teaching of Socrates him- 
self, this truth, perhaps, would scarcely assume the form of a 
positive doctrine, so distinctly as it is stated by Plato. It would 
be simply a practical conviction. And thus Socrates himself 
probably scarcely propounded it in formal terms, nor without 
those qualifying doubts which both his memorialists describe 
him as joining with its enunciation. But Plato, following him, 
took up the doctrine as a formal truth, and worked it up into a 
perfect theory, with the array of argument and didactic exposition. 
There was nothing, indeed, of system in any part of the 
teaching of Socrates. In the Memorabilia of Xenophon, we have 
probably a very complete specimen of the substance of what he 
taught, and, in the desultory manner in which the subjects of 
the several conversations there given are introduced, of the 
actual way in which he would throw out his questions and 
reflections on different points, as they happened to suggest 
themselves on each occasion. There we find the various duties 
of the good man and the good citizen summarily sketched, 
without the formality of statement or systematic connection. 
He inquires what is just, or pious, or temperate ; and he leads 
his hearers to consider the true definitions of the several 
virtues ; x but it is chiefly with the view of laying open their 
mistakes and confusion of thought on the subject, and to divert 

1 Xenoph. Mem. iv. 8, 11. 'iKavbs 5<r Kal \oyo eltretv re Kal diopiaaadaL ret 

TOtO.VTa, k. t. A. 



408 SOCRATES. 

them from sophistical disquisitions on Virtue, to the discharge of 
Virtue in all its parts, rather than to give any precise idea of it 
himself. 1 

Certainly there are grave objections to the morality which 
he taught. It did not enjoin that perfect purity of sentiment 
and action, which, judging from its general excellence, we might 
perhaps have expected. It forbade indulgence in the pleasures 
of the body, as injurious and evil ; but it did not also forbid 
licentiousness, as altogether vicious, or, though it condemned, 
fix the due stigma of disgust and abomination on that mon- 
strous form of vice which polluted Grecian society. Nor, 
again, did it give a right tone to the resentful feelings. It 
enjoined the requiting of ill to enemies — placing retaliation as a 
duty on a par with the return of kindness to friends. 2 With 
these exceptions, the morality inculcated by Socrates, founded 
as it was on the indications in man's nature of a destiny beyond 
the present world, bears strongly the marks of the law written 
by the finger of God, and proves that the Creator has not left 
Himself without witness, even where the light of His revela- 
tion has not shone. Supposing even that those great truths, 
thus taught, were the broken planks from the wreck of a primi- 
tive Faith, floated down on the stream of ages, we must yet 
believe a providential disposition, in the fact of that ready 
acceptance which they could obtain with one, brought up, as 
Socrates was, amidst the grossest corruptions of heathenism. 
His was an instance, how the unsophisticated heart responds to 
the notices of divine truth, when once they are duly presented 
vto it ; and how, wherever there is a sincere pursuit of right, the 
moral eye will be enabled to pierce the surrounding gloom, and 
to discern, for the most part, the true outline and form of right. 

1 Xenoph. Mem. iv. 4, 9. 'AXXd ,ud avrrj eKebrj i] etwS-i/ta eipcovela Zw/cpdroi/^ 

At', gcprj, oi'K ciKovar], irpiv 7' av clvtos kclI tot eyw ydeiv re /cat tovtols irpoifke- 

diro(p7)vri, 6 tl voixi^eLS to dLtcaLov ttVat. yov, 6'rt av airoKplvacr^nxL p.ev ova eS-eX??-' 

d/>/cet yap, 'otl tQ>v clXKcop KCLTayeXas, vols, elptovevaoLo de, /cat tt&vtcl p.BX\ov 

ipcoTuv p.kv /cat ekeyxwv tt&vtcls, clvtos 5' ttoctjo-ols 77 airoKpLvolo, et t'ls tl ae epccTa. 
ovdevl 6e\cov vrrixeLv \6yov ov§t yvibp.r}v 2 Xenoph. Mem. iv. 2. 16; ii. 6. 35. 

cLirocpULLveadaL trepl ovdevbs, k. t. X. Aristot. Hhet. ii. 23. 
Plato, Rep. i. 10. *0 H>d/cXets, tyrj, 



HIS MORAL AND RELIGIOUS TEACHING. 409 

It is observable, however, that, whilst Socrates correctly 
perceived that the laws of religion and morality possessed a 
sacred importance, independently of all positive enactments of 
men, he yet appeals to the laws of the state for the particular 
rules of religious and moral duty. When instructing Euthy- 
demus on the worship of the gods, he cites the Delphic oracle, 
which enjoined the law of the state as the rule of acceptable 
worship. 1 When asked by the sophist Hippias what is just, he 
answers, that it is what the laws prescribe. Such reference was 
perfectly natural in a Greek, accustomed as Greeks were to 
view every thing in subordination to politics, and to regard the 
duty of the citizen as paramount to every other duty. This 
feeling had its influence with Socrates, and induced him to 
regard the authority of the state as possessing in itself a moral 
force of obligation. The respect which he throughout shewed to 
the laws of his own state, was that of one who not only obeyed 
what they commanded, but strictly reverenced their authority. 2 
We must not, however, suppose, that he thus intended to place 
positive and moral laws on the same footing. The reference 
which he gives to the written law of the state, as the directory 
on questions of religion and morals, is the substitute in his 
teaching for a systematic development of the moral and religious 
duties. The law of the state presented, to one who had no 
thought of systematizing the subject for himself, the best expres- 
sion of those grea,t truths which he was drawing forth from the 
higher source of man's eternal nature. He is content to point 
out to his hearers, in a general way, the wisest and readiest 
collection of rules for those cases which came under the great 
comprehensive duties of piety and justice. Evidently he is not 
treating the subject with the exactness of the theorist, in assign- 
ing this importance to the law of the state; but he is enforcing 
the use of the law of the state as an authoritative practical guide 
to right conduct. — His internal view of religion, for example, 

1 Xenoph. Mem. iv. 3, 16. Also, i. ful address, put into the mouth of So- 
3, 1. crates, from the personified majesty of 

2 See in the Crito of Plato, a beauti- the laws. 



410 SOCftATES. 

was founded on observation of the signs of benevolent design 
throughout the material and intellectual world ; and he was thus 
led to the acknowledgment of a pure Theism. But in his con- 
duct, he knew not how to realize the obligations which the 
perception of this truth imposed on him. With his reverence, 
accordingly, for the laws of his country, as well as under the 
influence of that superstition to which his piety habitually 
verged, he sought a direction to his religious sentiments from 
the authority of the state, and thus in practice was a poly- 
theist. — His object was further to prevent men from trusting 
to the conceits of their own judgment in matters of con- 
duct, and to recommend a proper deference to the wisdom 
and authority of their ancient laws, then so presumptuously 
slighted by each vain pretender to superior prudence and 
political sagacity. 

In assailing, as Socrates did, the follies of his countrymen by 
the dexterity of an acute reason, he was ever exposing their 
ignorance. The impression on his own mind appears to have 
been, that men erred rather from the want of due information 
respecting their moral condition, than from the perverseness of 
their will — from folly, rather than from vice. Himself an accu- 
rate observer of human life, and with a disposition to follow the 
path of duty wherever it might lead him, he had in his own case 
felt the importance of intellectual cultivation, in order to right 
conduct. From his own circumstances, accordingly, and a 
natural predilection for those exercises of the mind which were 
his habitual pursuit, he overrated this importance ; and, instead 
of simply regarding the information of the mind as a necessary 
ingredient in moral improvement, he made it all in all. Thus, 
according to him, wisdom or philosophy was virtue, and ignorance 
and folly, vice. He carried this view of Morals so far, as to 
place the knowledge of duty on a footing with the know- 
ledge of arts. Nor was he even startled with the paradox, 
that if such were the case — if the knowledge of right were 
the whole of morality — there would be less immorality in 



HIS MORAL AND RELIGIOUS TEACHING. 411 

intentional wrong conduct; than in unintentional done through 
ignorance. 1 

Thus vice was in no case, in the view of Socrates, an act of 
the will, but of the mistaken judgment. He did not mean by 
this to assert, that men did not act wrong wilfully in the parti- 
cular instances of misconduct, so as not to deserve blame for 
their misconduct ; but that the seat of vice was in the perverse 
understanding — for that the will was invariably towards good. 
If, accordingly, vice may be regarded as seated in the under- 
standing, and not in the heart, it would follow, that that man is 
less vicious in principle, who knows what is right and acts wrong, 
than one who acts wrong without knowing what is right. The 
former alternative, however, was impossible, according to his 
theory. For knowledge, by its intrinsic excellence, must prevail 
over every other principle. So far was Socrates led by the 
working of his method, and his observation of the ignorance and 
folly of men, to overlook facts, at least, as evident on the other 
side — the plain instances of men acting wrong in spite of their 
better knowledge, and of greater blame assigned to wrong thus 
done in spite of knowledge. His error is further to be traced to 
a confusion of the ideas of right and happiness, in the term 
" good." That the will is, by the original constitution of man, 
invariably towards good, if we take good in the sense of real 
interest or happiness, is quite true ; but it is far from true, if we 
include the notion of right in that of good. Men, when they 
take even perverted views of their happiness, may be regarded 

1 Xenoph. Mem. iv. 2, 20. Ao/cet oe Grammaticus non erubescit solecismum, 

vol /xdOrjais Kai eiriaTrifjLr} rod dtKaiov eluac, si sciens facit : erubescit, si nesciens. 

Cbcnrep tQv ypa/x/iaTuv, k. t. A. Seneca, Medicus, si deficere eegrum non intel- 

arguing also the need of moral inform ar ligit, quantum ad artem, magis peccat, 

tion for the performance of duty, refers quam si se intelligere dissimulat. At 

to the same illustration of morality from in hac arte vivendi, turpior volentium 

the arts, as that given by Xenophon, io culpa est." He seems to have had the 

shew that there is no real analogy be- argument of Socrates, as given by Xen<". 

twecn ihe two subjects. "Vis scire," phon (Mem iv. 2, 20.) in his view. So 

he says, Ep. 95. 8, "quam dissimilis also Aristotle, Eth. Nic. vi. 5. Kcu iv 

sit harum artium conditio et hujus ? In fiev rix v V ° & K & V afiaprdvcov alperurepos' 

illis excusatius est, voluntate peccare, irepl 5e (ppovrjcnv tjttov, (bcirep /cat irepl ras 

quam casu : in hac maxima culpa est, dperds. 
sponte deiinquerc. Quod dico, talc est. 



412 SOCEATES. 

as unconsciously desiring the real happiness of their nature. 
The will, therefore, in this sense, may be said to be always 
towards good. But in the latter sense of the term " good " — that 
in which it includes right — the contrary rather is true. Men 
see the light, but love darkness rather than light; and the seat 
of vice is, accordingly, not in the understanding, but in the 
heart. But there is this justification of the language of Socrates 
on moral subjects, that the ignorance which he attacked, was, in 
truth, a vicious and blameable ignorance. Men did not take 
pains to inform themselves on moral subjects. They neglected 
themselves, pursuing and professing every other kind of know- 
ledge but that which was most at hand for their acquisition, 
and most concerned them. Seeing, then, the moral errors into 
which men ran from this neglect, Socrates not unreasonably set 
his mark of reprobation on ignorance, as the source of immorality. 
Immediately, indeed, and ostensibly, he attacked the general 
ignorance of men, holding out Philosophy as the remedy of vice 
and unhappiness. But the ultimate and real object of his attack 
all the while was, the immoral disposition, the self-neglect, and 
the irregular habits of life, from which the incapacity and 
ignorance of men on moral subjects commonly result. Then, 
further, it was the ignorance of self, chiefly, that he laboured to 
remove. He found conceit as to themselves, the prevailing 
fault of the men of his age and country. And he hoped, by 
exposing their ignorance on various subjects, to make them 
question their presumptions relating to their own nature, and 
character, and duties. Thus would he, in effect, be correcting 
moral error — the folly of men persuading themselves and others 
that they knew what they had never cared to examine, much 
less to know. 1 

As the peculiar aspect under which he presented the subject 
of Morals arose, in a great measure, from his manner of interro- 
gating in conversation, so the general character of his philosophy 
is to be sought in its intimate connection with the peculiar 

1 Xenophon speaks of the refutations tisements of presumptuous folly, KoXaa- 
ernployed by Socrates, serving as chas- TTjpiov eVe/ca. Mem. i. 4. 1. 



HIS DIALECTICAL PROCEEDING. 413 

method which he pursued. His philosophy, being essentially 
colloquial, laid down no positive principles in any particular 
science, or even any general principles for the conduct of the 
understanding in scientific or moral inquiries. But it sought to 
rouse the understanding to a perception of its condition of weak- 
ness, and defects, and ignorance, previous to its interrogation of 
itself, and its acquisition of knowledge, and its strengthening by 
exercise and discipline. Like the great reformer of modern 
science, he found nothing duly ascertained in the field of Philo- 
sophy ; hypotheses assumed without examination, truth obscured 
and confounded under the plausible • cover of general terms and 
vague analogies. Yet every one was fully satisfied with the 
state of knowledge ; every one presumed that he was in posses- 
sion of the truth. So, too, at this period, as at the time when 
Bacon proposed his new method, there was a dialectical science 
in use, available only for disputation and victory, and not reach- 
ing the truth of things, or imparting any real knowledge. And, 
in like manner, in the time of Socrates, as in that of Bacon, this 
imperfect dialectical science was regarded as the key to every 
kind of knowledge ; and he who could discourse fluently on any 
given subject, was esteemed the accomplished philosopher. " Of 
nothing," as Bacon himself pointedly observes, "were men so 
scrupulous as lest they should seem to doubt on any subject." 1 

This state of things formed a strong barrier against any 
attempt to effect a moral reformation. The way to the heart 
had to be cleared through a mass of outworks thrown out by 
the intellect. It only remained, then, for him who would be the 
moral reformer of his countrymen, to work by means of that very 
dialectical science which opposed its ramparts and its arms to 
his progress. 

But to have simply used the same method which his con- 
temporaries employed, would have been to revolve in the same 
perpetual circle. Socrates, indeed, might, by a more skilful use 
of the same dialectical artifices, have confuted the Sophists and 
others with whom he reasoned. He might have gained the 

1 Nov. Ore. i. 67. 



414 SOCRATES. 

victory in argument, by demonstrating the fallacy of their 
deductions, or proving the contradictoriness of their conclusions. 
But no advance would have been made by such a proceeding 
towards a detection of the source of the popular errors, the wrong 
principles themselves, on which men argued and acted. To 
accomplish this object, then — to expose the fallacy of wrong 
principles — he had to exalt the art of the dialectician to a 
higher function than that of merely eliciting consequences from 
given principles. 

This attempt accordingly he made. Without instituting any 
formal method, or teaching any art of discourse — without, it 
seems, having any such design in his thoughts — he yet so far 
gave a new direction and impulse to dialectical science, as to 
render it in some measure at least subservient to the investiga- 
tion of truth. In his hands, it served, if it did nothing- more, to 
raise doubts as to the truth of erroneous principles which before 
had passed without question, and which the very practice of 
reasoning from them as axioms, had tended to confirm as fixed 
and indisputable standards of all other truths. 

We must not suppose, that Definition and Induction were 
unknown as parts of Dialectic before Socrates ; or that Socrates 
was absolutely the first to discover and propound their nature 
and use. The expressions of Aristotle might suggest this sup- 
position. For he says particularly, that there were two things 
which one might ascribe to Socrates, General Definition, and 
Inductive Eeasoning. 1 What Aristotle probably intends to say, 
is, that Socrates was the first to improve the existing dialectical 
method, by employing Definition and Induction as the principal 
engines of discussion, and illustrating their nature and use more 
than ever had been done before him. He gave them, in fact, a 
body and a vitality, by applying them to the realities with 
which men had to do in their daily life. 2 Instead of employing 

1 Aristot. Metaph. xii. 4. Avo yap 2 Xenoph. Mem. iii. 3. 11. Aiyets, 

iartv a rts av airobolr] ^wKparei SiKatcos, £<py, o"i> rbv tirirapxov Trpbs tols dXXots 

rods r' eiraKTiKovs \6yovs, koX to bpi^eadai eiripLeXdadcu deiu Kai rod Xeyecv bi/vacrdcu ; 

Kadokov. Ibid. i. 6. irepl bptafxtou eiria- k. t. X. 
TTjaai'TOS irp&Tov rr\v bt&voiav. 



HIS DIALECTICAL PROCEEDING. 415 

them for the purpose of verbal distinction, or for the expression 
of some abstract and barren generality, he applied them to 
limit the vague notions entertained about matters of practical 
concern, and to bring opinions into harmony with ordinary 
experience. To the dialecticians before him, Definition and 
Induction were the commencement of their discussions. They 
unsuspectingly presumed on the logical processes involved in 
these instruments of discourse, as already sufficiently accom- 
plished. They attempted, indeed, to define ; but they took such 
definitions as they found at hand — of course the most super- 
ficial. 1 General principles they scarcely thought of establishing ; 
but they assumed such as were the current maxims of the day. 
And the rest of their discourse proceeded from these crude 
and unscientific elements. But Socrates did not profess to 
give definitions, or to have arrived at any positive certain 
principles, from which, as data, other truths might be demon- 
strated. 

He disclaimed, as has been already pointed out, the design 
or the ability to teach. He was only an inquirer, himself 
knowing nothing. When pressed, as by the sophist Hippias, to 
give his own account of the particular subject about which he 
is importunately questioning, he evades the point, and recurs to 
his established way of proceeding by interrogatories. 2 He is 
constantly, that is, endeavouring to rise to a correct definition 
of the subject under discussion. He presents it as the end to be 
attained by the whole discussion ; leading the person questioned 
from point to point, until he brings him close to the true and 
exact idea of the subject. So also does he employ Induction. 
He cites some instance, — commonly some coarse and very 
familiar one, from the workshop of the smith or the shoemaker, 
or from the culiDary art, and the like, — as apposite to the point 
under debate ; and thus brings the principle itself, on which the 
dispute turns, to the test of actual experience. This was so 

1 Aristot. Metaph. i. 5. Kcu irepl rod Xiav 5' d7r\ws irrpayfiaTevOTjaaV wpi^ovrd 
tL earns ijp^avTO p.ev Xtyeip nal bpl^eadac re yap iTMroXaius, k. t. A. 
2 Xenopli. Mem. iv. 4, 9. 



416 SOCRATES. 

much his manner, that it was made a standing jest by those 
against whom he so triumphantly employed it. They com- 
plained of his ever repeating the same thing ; ever talking of 
" carpenters, and smiths, and fullers, and cooks, and such like 
nonsense." 1 But he was not deterred by the scoff, which in 
reality proved the point and force of his reasonings. He replied, 
that about the same things, he must persist in saying the same 
things ; unless it could be shewn, that a person being asked, 
whether twice five were ten, should answer differently at differ- 
ent times. 2 Thus, he would continually recur to his well-known 
illustrations from common life, hackneyed as they were in his 
own use, and low and trifling as they might seem. 

From this his constant practice of bringing men to the test 
of Definition and familiar instances on every subject discussed, 
he had been regarded by the Thirty as the teacher of an " Art of 
Discourse," and as therefore obnoxious to a law which they had 
made (chiefly with a view to him), forbidding the teaching of 
such an art. 3 Such a restriction, however, could not apply to 
Socrates ; since, as we have seen, he professed no art ; he im- 
parted no method of argument ; and, to have silenced him, they 
must, as he shewed them, have absolutely prevented his asking 
the most simple and familiar question. Here it was the point 
of an apt illustration that had provoked this sally of resent- 
ment from Critias and Charicles, two of the Thirty. It had been 
reported to them that he had drawn attention to their acts of 
violence, by asking, what would be thought of the herdsman 
under whose care a herd should be diminished. On this occa- 
sion, Charicles, after vainly remonstrating with him against the 
practice of his daily conversations, shewed the point of the 
illustration, by bidding him beware lest he also should make the 
number of the herd still less. 4 

So far, indeed, was Socrates from instituting any regular method 
either of argument or of investigation, that the very definitions 

1 Xenoph. Mem. i. 2, 37. Plato, Got- 3 Xenoph. Mem. i. 2, 31, 3. Aristid. 
gias, p. 491, a. t. iv. p. 96. t. ii. p. 248. 

2 Xenoph. Mem. iv. 4, 7. Sid t&v 4 Xenoph. Mem. i. 2, 37. 
5oko6ptcoj> tols avdpwjrois. 



HIS USE OF ANALOGY. 417 

and instances which he employed were of a popular character, 
adapted for refutation of error rather than for conviction of the 
truth, — such as to place difficulties in the way of a dogmatic 
opponent, rather than didactic illustrations of any particular 
subject. He was engaged in repelling dogmatism. And nothing 
is of more avail for this purpose than analogies ; such instances, 
that is, as test the truth of an assumption in one case, by its 
application to another of the same kind. Direct instances, 
shewing experimentally the truth or falsehood of an assump- 
tion, may be difficult to be found ; and, in their use, they 
require a particular acquaintance with the subject itself, in order 
that their application may be seen. For example, if it were 
desired to expose a false theory of government, some fact of 
history must be adduced, and its bearing on the theory in ques- 
tion must be distinctly pointed out. But an analogous instance 
does not require this intimate acquaintance with the subject 
itself, in illustration of which it is brought. It shews at once 
that a given hypothesis is either tenable, or not tenable, — that it 
is verified or not verified in some parallel case, and therefore 
may be granted or not, in the subject about which the argument 
is. Only it is necessary, for this purpose, that the analogous 
instance should be a familiar one, — that the exhibition of the 
principle in question should be clear and striking in the in- 
stances adduced. For example, to set forth the evil of tyranny, 
it would be quite enough to point out, as Socrates did, the case 
of a herdsman under whose keeping a herd should be deterior- 
ated ; and the inference would be immediate, that a career of 
confiscation and blood was no evidence of a good government. 
Again, whether it were wise to choose magistrates by lot, would 
be a difficult question to be decided by the direct evidence of 
facts bearing on the point. But when Socrates referred to the 
absurdity of appointing a steersman by lot, it was at' once evi- 
dent, that there were cases in which this mode of appointing 
important officers of the state would be mischievous. Such then 
was the kind of evidence which Socrates was constantly adduc- 
ing from analogous instances to the point in question ; an evi- 

2 E 



418 SOCEATES. 

dence not conveying any positive instruction in the theories of 
the subjects to which it was applied ; but removing false im- 
pressions respecting them, and opening the mind to the recep- 
tion of the truth. It was an admirable method of unteaching 
prejudices or vain assumptions, and of silencing the dogmatist, — 
a method, powerful at once for the refutation of error, and the 
conviction of ordinary minds incapable of being instructed by a 
more direct and positive evidence. Such, accordingly, was the 
method practised by Socrates. In pursuing any argument, " he 
would proceed," as Xenophon observes, " by the most admitted 
premises ; considering this to be the sound basis of discussion. 
And therefore," adds Xenophon, " he, far beyond all I ever knew, 
when he spoke, carried conviction to his hearers ;" and he would 
say, " that Homer had ascribed to Ulysses the merit of being a 
sound orator, on account of his arguing on grounds that are the 
most apparent to men." 1 

It was seldom, however, if ever, that Socrates avowedly 
argued a point. Professing to know nothing himself, he con- 
stantly challenged others as to what they professed to know. 
He put his questions to each person with whom he conversed, 
very much as the skilful experimenter in these days does to 
Nature, so as to lead to the affirmative or negative of a particular 
hypothesis whose truth he would investigate. Having obtained 
an answer, he proceeds analytically, to found on that another 
question, studiously directed, in like manner, to elicit the answer 
which might serve for further inquiry, and so on, until he has 
reduced the first proposition to some simple elements, clearly 
shewing the truth or falsehood of the original assumption. As 
to the persons addressed, it was a leading them on by a series of 
gradual concessions, each of slight amount in itself, as they 
answered the questions which he put to them, until at length the 
collection of the whole in the result disclosed some great error 
and contradiction to the original assumption; like a game of 
chess (as one of those subjected to the process describes it), in 
which the unskilful player is at last shut out, or check-mated, 

1 Xenoph. Mem. iv. 6, 15. 



HIS USE OF ANALOGY. 419 

and unable to move. They have nothing to say at the last ; 
and yet they are not satisfied that the truth is so. 3 It was as 
truly an experimental process on men's minds, as that which 
the modern investigator performs on the subject which he 
examines. Those analogical instances in which he so much 
delighted, served the purpose of this analysis, no less than direct 
and proper instances, such as belong to him who investigates 
experimentally the nature of a particular subject. For analogies 
detect the state of the mind to which they are addressed. They 
at once call forth and illustrate its principles and habits of 
thought, and enable the experimenter to avail himself of the 
existing resources in that mind for effecting the desired convic- 
tion. They furnish him with a clue to the course which he 
should follow in carrying on his analysis. This was that mid- 
wifery of the mind which Socrates used sportively to describe as 
his peculiar occupation. 

In his conversation, for example, with Euthydemus, 2 who 
prided himself in having cultivated his mind by his own inde- 
pendent study of books, of which he had formed a large collec- 
tion — he first drew attention to the singularity of the young 
man's conceit, by representing him as coming before the public, 
with high professions of being self-taught, and putting the 
parellel case of a candidate for some medical office, who should 
announce that he had studiously avoided even the appearance of 
having learned the art of medicine, and ask for the office on the 
promise of endeavouring to learn the art by his future practice. 
Interest being excited by this illustration of the absurdity, he next 
led his hearers to see the further absurdity of entering on political 
affairs without preparation, by referring to the fact of the severe 

1 Kepub. vi. 487. "fi 2c6/c/>ares, 'ip-q, vea^ai.' kclI cbairep virb tCov ireTreveiv 5ei- 

7rp6s p.kv rodrd aoi ovdels dv olos Te'irj dvTet.- vwv, oi fir], reXevTwvres aTroKkdovrai, koX 

ireiv' dXXd yap TOibvbe tl irdo~x ovo ~ LV oi ovk £x ov<tlp & Tt <p£p w<7LV i ovtoj nal atpe'is 

aKovovres eKaarore a vvv Xtyeis' TjyovvTai reXevr&VTes aTTOKXeiea'^aL, K<xl ovk %X eLV 

bC aTreipiavTov epuravre KaiaTCOKpLvea'baL 6 tl Xeywcrii> virb 7rerret'as av ravrrjs 

virb rod Xbyov iratf eKaarov rb epdoTijpLa twos irepas, ovk kv r j r)(f>ois, dXV ev Xbyois' 

crfXLKpbv irapayo/xevoi, d^tpoio-^ivTWV twu iird to ye dXrfirts ovUv rt fidXXou TutiTr) 

o-fUKpQu eirl TeXevTrjs T&v Xbyuv, yu^ya rb ?X eLV - 

a<pdXp.a, Kal havriov toIs irpwTois dvo.cpa.i- 2 Xenoph. Mem. iv. 2. 



420 SOCRATES. 

application and discipline undergone by persons who seek repu- 
tation in such accomplishments as flute-playing and riding. Then, 
having gained over Euthydemus as a more willing listener, he 
proceeds to question him as to the use for which he had collected 
so many books. He throws out the presumption that they have 
been collected with a view to enrich the mind with virtue. 
Supposing this to be granted, he goes on to interrogate Euthy- 
demus as to the particular excellence of which he is in quest. 
He enumerates several particulars ; and these being rejected, he 
comes at last to excellence in the art of government, which the 
young man concedes to be the object of his desire. This gives 
an opening to inquire into the qualifications necessary for such 
excellence. He discovers, by the answers of Euthydemus, that 
he conceives himself master of those moral virtues which he 
is induced to admit are indispensable to the good citizen. By 
a series of questions, however, relating to particular actions, he 
forces Euthydemus to admit, that what is just in one case, is 
unjust in another, and to contradict himself in his successive 
statements as to the comparative criminality of voluntary and 
involuntary acts of injustice. What, then, triumphantly asks 
the philosopher, think you of a person who is so inconsistent 
with himself ? The conclusion is inevitable ; and Euthydemus 
is constrained to own, that " he knew not what he thought he 

Sew." But Socrates, not yet satisfied, presses him further to 
plain his notion of that ignorance which he had thus dis- 
played ; and finds that, notwithstanding his confession of his 
want of right instruction, he yet presumes on his possession of 
self-knowledge. Another question forces him to abandon this 
position. The young man then asks to be only put in the way 
of self-examination. Here at once his false presumptions are 
exposed to the searching analysis of Socrates. The inquiry 
turns on a knowledge of the goods and evil of life. Euthy- 
demus enumerates one thing after another as good ; and Socrates 
immediately subjoins some counter evil as attending it ; until 
Euthydemus at last gives up his confidence in his own opinion, 
and declares that he knows not now what he ought to pray for 



HIS USE OF IftONY. 421 

to the gods. Again, Socrates presents before him pointedly the 
evidence he had thus given of having been diverted from con- 
sideration of the subject by the strong presumption of his know- 
ledge of it. But that he may leave no room for escape, he calls 
on him, in conclusion, to state his opinion as to the nature of 
democracy, which at least, he conceived, Euthydemus, as a can- 
didate for public office in a popular state, must have studied. 
And in like manner, he extorts from his successive answers a 
further proof of his ignorance and incompetence to the duties 
for which he had designed himself. 

The effect thus produced is what Plato compares to the 
numbing touch of the torpedo. 1 The mental powers of the 
individual thus tried were for the moment paralyzed. He found 
that he only committed himself further by renewed efforts ; and 
" began to think," as Euthydemus says of himself at the close of 
the conversation to which we have just referred, " whether it 
were not best for him to be silent; as he ran the hazard of 
appearing absolutely to know nothing." 

From the instance just given, it will appear that a current 
of irony pervaded these experimental argumentations of Socrates. 
There was irony mingled with earnest conviction, in that very 
disclaimer of all knowledge with which he set out. It was a 
mask, behind which he could hurl his weapons of assault on the 
boasted knowledge of others; whilst at the same time he ex- 
pressed his serious view of the real ignorance of man, and the 
necessity of coming with a simple unprejudiced mind to the 
acquisition of truth. In the prosecution, however, of his method 
of analysis by interrogation, irony was indispensable for the 
success of his inquiry. For his object was to obtain the truth 
from the mouth of the person interrogated, not to state it him- 
self ; and where he did state it accordingly, it was necessary to 
put it in such a form as to try whether it was the opinion or not 
of that person — whether he really thought so, or adopted it on 
the judgment of his questioner. An ironical statement answers 
this purpose. It conceals the teacher ; and enables him to judge, 

1 Plato, 31eno., 80 a. t, iv., p. 348. 



422 SOCKATES. 

according as the hearer applies it, what the state of the hearer's 
mind is ; and to argue the point in question, not on premises laid 
down by himself, but on the admissions of the other. The hearer, 
too, is taken by surprise. The air of seriousness which the 
ironical manner sets out with, and the absurdity involved, on 
second thought, in carrying out the supposition of a serious 
intent, in their united effect, provoke the smile of surprize, and 
win attention. As Socrates was engaged, too, in presenting 
unacceptable conclusions — bringing home to the self-conceited 
evidences of their real ignorance — it was necessary for him to 
disguise, as much as possible, the conclusion to which he was 
tending. He had to assume, therefore, the principles on which 
those with whom he conversed were reasoning and acting, and 
reduce these to an absurdity, by applying them as true to some 
evident case of ordinary experience. The skilful use made by 
Socrates of this irony was a powerful enforcement, in itself, of 
the convictions which he desired to leave on the minds of his 
hearers. He brought the aid of a delicate ridicule to the support 
of an argument, and thus exhibited the desired conclusion under 
a form, which, whilst it pleased the hearers, shamed them into an 
acknowledgment of its truth. 

But this irony, and the analogical instances over which it 
was thrown, were but approaches to that end which Socrates 
appears always to have had in view in his conversations — the 
ascent to accurate general notions of each object of thought. 
He was always working his way towards an exact definition of 
the idea on which the discussion turned. Each instance which 
he adduced was a step in this progress, diminishing by its light 
some portion of that obscurity and confusion of thought with 
which he found the subject invested. He did not, indeed, reach 
the point which he had in view. Dialectical science was in too 
rude a state at present for the attainment of its perfect end. 
Socrates rather set an admirable example of the perseverance 
and energy with which the end should be pursued, than a perfect 
model of the method of pursuing it. His very method, indeed, 
confesses its own imperfection, in stopping just at the point 



HIS USE OF DEFINITION. 423 

where the way seems to be opened, and leaving the subject nega- 
tively, rather than positively defined. 

This constant pursuit of exact definition is an indication of 
the antisceptical bent of the mind of Socrates. The foundations 
of morals and of all science were shaken by the speculations of 
his sophistical predecessors. Opinion was exalted to the pre- 
rogative of knowledge. Socrates accordingly put opinion to the 
test. He explored it experimentally, as it existed in different 
minds ; and he proved it deficient from the standard to which 
it had been vainly exalted. He found that it vanished before 
the light of investigation ; and, in fact, that in proportion as 
the fancies and errors of opinion were cleared away, advances 
were made towards more stable and certain knowledge. This 
knowledge, accordingly, he continually sought after. He had 
probably but an indistinct conception of the realities towards 
which he directed his pursuit. Still he appears constantly to 
have assumed and fully believed their existence, by steadily 
proceeding, as we find him to have done, through the various 
opinions which he encounters in discussion, until he arrives at 
some more definite form of thought. What Socrates only indis- 
tinctly apprehended, Plato afterwards realized in his philosophi- 
cal system, and endued with existence in his celebrated theory 
of Ideas. But in the view of his master that theory was but 
dimly seen in shadow. Socrates shaped his course towards it, 
as he more and more limited the extravagancies of popular 
opinion on the various subjects which he discussed, and excluded 
whatever was irrelevant and foreign to the real nature of the 
thing. He threw doubts on what was doubtful, that there might 
be the less doubt and uncertainty about what remained when 
the doubtful was removed from a subject. 

What appears to have led Socrates into this sound method of 
proceeding, was, as Aristotle very justly intimates, the firm 
moral convictions which were the great elements of his mind 
and character. 1 He felt that there was a reality in the princi- 
ples of piety, justice, benevolence, and other moral sentiments, 

1 Aristot. Metaph. i. 6. Zw/cpdrous §k irepl ixkv to, tjOlko. Trpay/xarevofx^vov, k. t. X. 



424 SOCEATES. 

which no sophistry could impugn. He not only felt their 
reality within himself, but he had observed, that however in- 
visible to the outward eye, they produced real effects in the 
world ; that they were not only evidenced in the constitution of 
Nature, but also recognized in those unwritten laws which were 
found everywhere the same, independently of positive institution, 
as well as in the enactments of particular states. 1 . He looked 
for the original of these sentiments to the perfect nature of the 
Divinity; and he held them accordingly to be invariable and 
true. Hence he would allow no proper and adequate power of 
causation but moral design. Material or mechanical causes 
were in his view but of instrumental efficacy. 2 It was moral 
sentiment only, the love and pursuit of good, that possessed real 
power. This alone, he observed, subsisted unchanged and fixed, 
whilst every thing else was moved by it, and derived its existence 
from it. It was the neglect of this primary principle in the 
detail of the physical theory of Anaxagoras, which had offended 
him in the system of that philosopher. And agreeably to this, 
Plato, as we have seen, tells us of his accounting for his remain- 
ing in his prison, from the simple cause of the moral feeling by 
which he was actuated. 

Fixing his eye accordingly on these stable eternal principles, 
Socrates pressed forward in every discussion towards their 
attainment. He would never rest in vague general classifica- 
tions, which, involving also much that belonged not to the 
subject in question, left its real nature as undefined as ever. But 
he proceeded to a further limitation of the generalities on each 
subject, obliging his hearer to distinguish the subordinate genera 
included in the more general idea first thrown out, and thus 

1 Xenoph. Mem. iv. 4. ligent of animals ; for that hands were 

2 Aristotle gives an instance of the an instrument for taking hold." Aristot. 
manner in which Anaxagoras lost sight de Part. Anim. iv. 10, p. 1034. 'Am£a- 
of his theory of mind in working out his ybpas fxev odv <pr)<ri, 5ia to X € ?P as %X €LV > 
system. Anaxagoras, he tells us, said (ppovLinbrarov elvai tQi> tywv rbv &p6pco- 
" that man was the most intelligent of ttov eiiXoyov de, Biol to (ppoui/xdorarov 
animals, hecause he had hands; where- elvai tCov t&wv, xetjoas ?x €lv ' T °v ^o.p.^d- 
as he should have stated, that man had veiv yap x e ?P €S 'opyavbv dcnv. 

hands because he was the most intel- 



HIS USE OF DEFINITION. 425 

gradually to circumscribe trie subject within its proper boun- 
daries. This was the intimate connection of his logic and ethics. 
He was engaged throughout in an endeavour to remove the vain 
presumptions of mere opinion, and to substitute for these a real 
knowledge, as far as it was attainable, of the subjects themselves. 
He conceived that if men went astray in their conduct, acting 
on what they mistakenly thought right, and good, and true, it 
was only necessary to make them know the truth, and they 
would then act on their knowledge, as before they acted on mere 
opinion, and by thus acting attain their happiness. This was 
but a short-sighted view of the origin of human misconduct and 
unliappiness ; as it did not go beyond the fact of the erroneous 
judgment of men, to the moral perversion which was the primary 
cause of their failure in action. As the practical error of men 
arises from this perversion, it is evidently vain to think to 
improve their conduct, by merely substituting more correct 
notions of truth and duty ; since this remedy does not reach the 
source of the malady. Such, however, was the view of Socrates. 
And hence he laboured, whatever might be the subject of his 
conversations, to lead men to contemplate the nature of the 
thing discussed, and to seek to define it to themselves; thus 
blending the perception of the right and the good in the intel- 
lectual apprehension of the truth. Xenophon accordingly 
remarks the importance attributed by Socrates to the ability of 
distributing things into genera, on the ground, that by means of 
this talent u men would become most virtuous, most formed for 
command, and most able in discourse." 1 

Though Socrates thus endeavoured to render his hearers 
accomplished in the art of discussion, by directing their atten- 
tion to Definition, he, as might be expected, in that early state 
of logical science, did little more than point out the great im- 
portance of Definition, and mark the direction in which it 
should proceed. Were we to take our estimate of what 
Socrates accomplished in this way from the Dialogues of Plato, 

1 Xenoph. Mem. iv. 5, 12. 'Ek tovtov yap yiyvecrdai dvdpas dpiarovs re nai 
7]yep.oi>iKwrdTovs (<ai dtaXeKTiKiOTdrovs.) 



426 SOCRATES. 

we must suppose Socrates to have been much more methodical 
in his discussions, than we should infer from the specimens 
given by Xenophon. Something perhaps should be allowed for 
the practical turn of Xenophon's mind, and his comparative 
inattention to the more abstract part of the discussions of his 
master, whilst his fellow-pupil, on the other hand, who had an 
eagle-eye for theory, however remote and dazzling, would seize 
every hint that dropped from the lips of Socrates for the indul- 
gence of his speculative imagination. Still Xenophon may be 
regarded as having presented the most natural, as well as most 
exact specimens of the method of Socrates. In the simplicity 
of his honest admiration and grateful recollection of the instructor 
and guide of his youth, he evidently records what had most 
impressed his own mind, both as to the substance and the 
manner of the conversations of Socrates, without any attempt 
either at dramatic or theoretic effect. From Xenophon we learn 
how Socrates appeared to the young Athenian, who, without 
any theories of his own, approached him, simply with the desire 
of hearing him, and applying what he might learn from the 
philosopher to his own improvement. Plato, on the other hand, 
whilst he also has given a faithful portrait of Socrates in the 
general outline (and the faithfulness is shewn by its close corre- 
spondence with that given by Xenophon), studied to give effect, 
at the same time, to his own philosophic sketches, by placing 
the figure of Socrates in such a light as to harmonize with his 
own sublime and beautiful ideal of truth. 

Thus we see how Socrates was the founder of the Moral and 
Logical science of the Schools of Athens. He taught nothing 
positively in either branch of Philosophy ; but he taught men to 
inquire, and set them on the right track of inquiry. He trained 
men to think for themselves — to accept no opinion which should 
be contradicted by the moral and intellectual principles of their 
own nature — and to rest in no opinion until they had traced it 
up to these principles. 

An exact Logic, and a sound Ethical system, would in time 
naturally result from such a direction of men's minds. 



ELEMENTARY STATE OF LOGICAL AND ETHICAL SCIENCE. 427 

In giving account to themselves of their opinions, men would 
be led to examine into the connections and dependencies of their 
ideas. Observations would be made on the relations of ideas, 
and of words as their signs and representatives. And such 
observations methodically stated, would at length constitute a 
system of Logic, such as that which Aristotle brought to light, 
about half a century after the death of Socrates. In the mean 
time, however, the value of ideas in themselves, apart from their 
expression by words, would engage attention ; and a metaphy- 
sical logic — a logic having for its object the determination of the 
true notion or idea of a thing, and for its business the discussion of 
the probabilities or appearances of truth surrounding the matter 
in question — would naturally be the first to succeed. Such was 
the Dialectic of Plato — a science of Discourse or Discussion, as 
its name imports ; not a particular science, like the Logic which 
grew out of it, but as general in its comprehension, as the method 
itself of Socrates, of which it was the formal development, and 
equivalent, therefore, to Philosophy in the highest sense of that 
term, as being a search after the Nature of things, or, according 
to Mm, a Theory of Ideas. 

Again, in giving account to themselves of their opinions, 
men would be led to trace the connection of their moral sen- 
timents and actions with an internal standard of right, inde- 
pendent of the variations of opinion. The examination of 
this relation would suggest, in process of time, a system of 
rules for bringing the variable — the sentiments and actions 
of the individual moral agent — into accordance with the in- 
variable principles of his moral nature. The first Ethics, iden- 
tical, like the first Logic, with Philosophy in general, would be 
employed in carrying the views of men to those great principles 
themselves — discussing and removing obstructions to the pure 
contemplation of the nature of Virtue. But the more mature 
study of Ethics, taking up the subject as a separate branch of 
Philosophy, w r ould develop the application of the doctrine of 
the fixed standard, by shewing throughout the field of man's 
Moral nature, how every moral sentiment is strictly limited by 



428 SOCEATES. 

its reference to such a standard. The former is the chief 
business of Plato's Ethical Philosophy ; the latter, that of Aris- 
totle's ; — the first tending to a contemplative morality, to a love 
of the transcendent beauty and excellence of Virtue — the latter, 
to a theory of Active Virtue — to a regulated state of the affec- 
tions in all the offices of life ; — both natural consequences in 
their order, of that awakening of the reason of men of which 
Socrates had been the living instrument. 

Socrates, at the same time, by the method which he pur- 
sued, taught men the beginning of an art of Criticism. Prom 
an examination of existing opinions, the transition was natural 
to the systems of philosophers, and the records of the opinions 
of men of former days. And, in this respect, Socrates may be 
regarded as the father of the History of Philosophy. Even had 
the criticism of the writings of philosophers formed no part of 
his conversations, still he must have prompted such an inquiry 
by his method of interrogating, and exacting from every one an 
account of his opinions. But he did more than this. Though 
not properly erudite, in that sense in which Plato and Aristotle 
were, he had yet acquainted himself with the doctrines of 
former philosophers. The chief part of his life was spent with 
his eye, not on books, but on men. Still, as we are informed by 
Xenophon, he had read, and had selected in the course of his 
reading, whatever he thought valuable in the writings of those 
before him. 1 Plato, accordingly, has made great part of the 
conversation of Socrates consist of criticism of the theories 
of philosophers. Much of this criticism evidently belongs to the 
richly-various and elaborate learning of the disciple, rather than 
to the master from whose lips it proceeds. But that Plato is 
not gratuitously ascribing this kind of learning to Socrates, we 
see from the manner in which the less erudite disciple refers 
to the discussions by Socrates of the doctrines of former philo- 
sophers. Not only does Xenophon mention, in common with 

1 Xenoph. Mem. i. 6. 14. Kat roi)s aveKirruv Koivfj ci)V roh <pi\ois diepxo- 
drjaavpovs rdv 7rd\cu aocpQp avbp&v, oi)s p.ai, k. t. \. 
eneivoi KariXiirov ev j8t/3\tots ypdipavres. 

/ 



VARIOUS SCHOOLS RESULTING FROM HIS TEACHING. 429 

Plato, the comments of Socrates on the more recent system of 
Anaxagoras, 1 but he refers also to his examination of the great 
antagonist theories of the older schools, of Parmenides, Xeno- 
phanes, Melissus, and others, on the one hand ; Heraclitus, 
Empedocles, and their followers, on the other ; thongh without 
formally introducing their names. 2 

That various and discordant Schools of Philosophy should 
have arisen out of the excitement produced by the movement 
thus originated, was in the natural course of things. Powerful 
minds, shaking off the yoke of sloth and indifference, and 
now at length roused to self-exertion, would, however gene- 
rally docile to the guidance of a leader, be tempted to try 
their own powers, and strike out a path for themselves. 
We are not to wonder, then, that Aristippus, the advocate of 
Pleasure, and Antisthenes, the austere cynic, should have been 
among the hearers of Socrates, or that Plato should have 
founded a contemplative mysticism on the sober homely philo- 
sophy of his master. Socrates, as we have all along shewn, did 
not propose any precise system of doctrine to his followers. 
His mission was accomplished in making them exert themselves. 
He did not desire that they should think alike, but that all 
should think and judge for themselves. It is no wonder, there- 
fore, that some should have gone into extravagancies, and that, 
whilst general good resulted from the excitement, partial evil 
also should have accompanied it. An Aristippus, or an Antis- 
thenes, could not have issued from the school of Pythagoras. 
But how much evil generally may have resulted from the 
abject submission to the authoritative opinions of Pythagoras, in 
the neglect of self-examination and self-knowledge, and dis- 
regard of personal responsibility, by those who implicitly re- 
ceived them ? 

But whilst we ascribe to Socrates the praise of having given 

at once the impulse and the character to Grecian philosophy, we 

must yet single out for special commendation, his admirable 

services in reviving the forgotten theory of Natural Keligion 

1 Xenoph. Mem. iv. 7. 2 Ibid. i. 1. 1416. 



430 SOCRATES. 

among his countrymen. Of Eeligion, indeed, as an external 
system of positive laws enforced by the state, they had, as 
we have before observed, more than enough. But religion, 
as a system of Truth, was scarcely thought of. When Aristo- 
phanes 1 brings on the stage Demosthenes asking Mcias, well- 
known as Mcias was for his superstitious feeling ; srsov fyytf ya% 
Qeovg; really, then, do you think there are gods?" 2 the allusion 
is evidently to the real irreligion, which the most rigid and 
scrupulous worship of the heathen but ill concealed. Eesting 
their belief of a Divine agency in the wwld on Tradition and 
Authority, men omitted to explore the witness of God in their 
own nature, and in the world around them. Consequently, 
they were exposed to every objection which the ingenuity of 
theory, or the folly and wickedness of the world might suggest 
to their uninformed credulity, against the positive truth of their 
religious system. As infidelity in these days finds its refuge in 
the belief of infallibility in the Church, and is itself in its turn 
the miserable refuge from the despotism of the very infallibility 
before which it crouches in silence ; so among the votaries of 
heathen superstition, the doubts and misgivings of the thoughtful 
intellect and the troubled heart, were left to prey on themselves, 
shut up in abject submission to an external authority, and un- 
prepared for their own defence and support. Socrates addressed 
a great portion of that practical information, which, in spite of 
his disclaimer of the office of a teacher, he was ever imparting 
to all around him, to the remedy of this distempered state of the 
religious feelings. He saw plainly enough that the vulgar 
theology could not be defended on the ground of rational evi- 
dence. This, therefore, in his respect for the ancient laws and 
customs of his country, he was content to lean on the sanction of 
positive institution. A great reverence, he justly thought, was 
due to the wisdom embodied in ancient laws ; and he would not 

1 Aristoph. Eq. 32. shew the low ground on which religion 

was rested in Greece. 

2 Thucyd. v. 105. 'Es to Beiov s Plato Euthyphro, p. 6. a. 'AXXd 
vo/niaeoos, — and Tjyov/xeda to Qelov do^rj, /not elire irpbs <pi\lov, <rv ws a\7]6u>s rjyei 
are expressions of Thucy elides, which TavTa yeyovfrai oi'rws ; k. t. X. 



HIS EVIDENCE IN FAVOUR OF RELIGION. 431 

encourage persons wantonly to abandon the presumptions of 
truth and right naturally belonging to established institutions. 
At least, he would not have men rashly set up their own notions 
against the presumptions in favour of the wisdom of other men 
and other days, recommended as these were by some experience 
of their stability and use, whilst each man's private opinions 
had no such sanction, or no equivalent sanction. But he felt, 
also, that the internal sense of Eeligion wanted other support — 
that presumptions of human vanity and corruption were, and 
ever would be, brought to bear against this ; and that such 
assaults could only be repelled by a well-informed reason pre- 
pared for the encounter. He therefore provided his hearer with 
a solid and impregnable argument in favour of the Being and 
Providence and Moral Government of the Deity. The argument 
was what is now familiarly known as the argument from final 
causes, or the evidences of Almighty design in the fabric and 
course of Nature. For this purpose, he gave an induction of 
instances from the world without, and from the intellectual and 
moral constitution of man himself, of admirable design in the 
adaptation of means to ends. He called upon men, with such 
evidences of Divine Benevolence around them, not to wait for any 
more palpable proof, such as judging from the analogy of Nature 
they had no ground to expect, but to believe in the existence of 
invisible things from their effects, and from the good received, to 
reverence the Deity, its author. The language, indeed, attributed 
to him by Xenophon, is in remarkable correspondence with that 
of St. Paul, declaring that, "the invisible things of God are 
clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even 
his eternal power and Godhead ;' ;1 and the tenor of his argument 
throughout illustrates the inspired observation of the apostle. 
More particularly we may advert to his striking inculcation of 
the doctrine of the Moral Government of God. He refers to the 
sense of responsibility as in itself an evidence of the existence 

1 Xenoph. Mem. iv. 3. 14. "A XPV clvtQiv KaraiiavdavovTa rifxdv to dai- 
Karavoovvra fxr) Karacfrpovelv tCjv dopdrcov, ixbviov. 
AW e/c rdv yiyvofxivoiv tt)v 8tivafj.iv 



432 SOCRATES. 

of a Divine Power to reward and punish ; * and he points to the 
pleasure and pain, advantage and disadvantage, respectively con- 
sequent on virtuous and vicious conduct, in the course of things, 
as instances of a perfection of government beyond the power of 
human laws. 2 The stock of instances has been enlarged by the 
researches of modern science, and strength has been added to 
them by their arrangement and combination. But Socrates, 
after all, has the distinguished merit of being the first to give 
the argument from final causes an explicit statement and due 
importance in the proof of Natural Eeligion. 

"When we think that truths of such high import and interest 
were so sedulously propagated for so many years in the place of 
concourse of the civilized world, we naturally turn from the con- 
templation of the living philosopher, to ask, what was the result — 
what was the amount of beneficial influence on the people to 
whom his mission was addressed. We cannot doubt, that on the 
whole the influence was great — that the serious errors of many 
in regard to the conduct of life were corrected — their minds 
opened to consider the great purposes for which they had been 
born into the world, and to look for happiness, not from transitory 
sensual enjoyments, but from the sober and vigorous exertion of 
their powers of thought and action. In some conspicuous in- 
stances, indeed, his endeavours strikingly failed. Critias and 
Alcibiades were known wherever the name of Athens was heard. 
And their wild and guilty career presented to the public eye a 
splendid mirror, from which the most unjust censure was 
reflected on the philosopher himself. But the many instances 
which must have occurred in humbler life, of his success in the 

1 Xenoph. Mem. i. 4. 1 6. Ol'et 5' av trates could make the sanctions of their 
Toiis deovs toIs avdpumois §6%av i/m^vaai, laws take place, without interposing at 
ws Ikclvoi eiaiv ed nal /ca/cws iroielv, el ixt) all, after they had passed them, without 
dvvarol rjcrau. a trial, and the formalities of an execu- 

2 Ibid. iv. 4. 24. N77 top Aia, & tion ; if they were able to make the laws 
XuKpares ^(prj, deoh ravra ttcLvtcl eoiKe' execute themselves, or every offender to 
rb yap robs vofiovs avrovs rois irapaflaL- execute them upon himself; we should 
vovac ras rip:copias 'ix eLV (3e\rLovos ?) icar' be just in the same sense under their 
avOpwirov vopLoderov doKe? /jloi elvai. So government then, as we are now'; but in 
Bishop Butler, in his Analogy, part i. a much higher degree, and more perfect 
ch. 2, observes, "For if civil magis- manner." P. 51. 



HIS EVIDENCE IN FAVOUR OF KEL1GION. 433 

work of moral reformation, are passed over in silence. That 
there were such instances Xenophon has given us to understand, 
when he observes, in his simple manner, that Socrates used to 
send forth those who associated with him,, improved by the 
effect of his intercourse with them. 1 To expect, however, 
any decisive and permanent public improvement from the 
teaching of the philosopher, would be to overlook the extent 
and the malignity of heathen corruption. The men of that 
day, as of the present, had the voice of God distinctly speak- 
ing within them ; " their conscience bearing witness, and 
their thoughts accusing or excusing them ; " according to that 
just description of them which Scripture has set before us. 
But if they shut their ears, and hardened their hearts against 
this divine instruction, how would they listen to one who was 
ever upbraiding them with their dulness and inattention to its 
lessons and admonitions ? Bather, they would feel towards 
him, according to that apposite illustration of Plato, as persons 
dozing towards one that should wake them up, and, after ridding 
themselves of his disturbance, think quietly to compose them- 
selves to sleep again. 2 For he did not disguise that his mission 
to them was one of reproof and expostulation — a mission, as 
he expressly told them, from the Deity ; and that his real con- 
cern, accordingly, was not for himself, but for the success of 
his mission, lest they should incur the guilt of rejecting a 
divine gift. 3 

And truly we may regard that energetic call which he was 
ever sounding in the ears of his countrymen, as a providential 
warning to the heathen world around him, against that repro- 
bate mind — that state of alienation from the life of God — when 
they who have continually resisted all His gracious appeals to 
their hearts, are left to eat of the fruit of their own ways, 
and, " being past feeling, give themselves over unto lasci- 

1 Xenoph. Mem. i. 2. 61. ^eXriovs 3 Ibid. TIoWov deib £yu virkp i/mavTov 
yap itolCjv tovs <Tvyytyvop.£vovs airiirefX- dwoKoyeTadai, &s tls av ololto, dXX' vnrtp 
T€v. Also ib. 4. 19; iv. 5. 24. vp.Qp, p,rj e£ap,dpT7)Te irepl ttjv rov deov 

2 Plato, Apol. Socr. 31, a. Op. i. 66aiv vpuv, ifiov KaTa\pr](pi<xdp.epoi, P. 
72. 7L 

2F 



434 SOCRATES 

viousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness." As God 
sent his Prophets to his chosen people, to tell them of their 
transgressions, and bid them " remember the law of Moses his 
servant ; " so in his dealings with the nations of the world, He 
appears to have raised up, from time to time, individuals from 
among themselves, heathens still, yet gifted with a purity of 
moral vision beyond their contemporaries, to retrace the Divine 
outline of their original nature, amidst the ruins and crumb- 
ling monuments of its former greatness ; and to declare, 
almost authoritatively, the indelible but forgotten law of Truth 
and Eighteousness. Israel rejected its Prophets, and persecuted 
and slew them ; but through all the perverseness of the people, 
those Prophets still proclaimed and prepared the way of the 
Lord. The heathen world, in like manner, refused to listen to 
the voice of its monitors — its Legislators, and Philosophers, 
and Moralists; but in spite of their general obduracy and 
indifference, we cannot but believe that the call was not 
utterly fruitless. To the original influence of Socrates especi- 
ally, brought, as this was, to bear on the great centre of 
heathen civilization, it may have been, in some measure, owing, 
that the light of religious and moral truth was kept alive, how- 
ever faintly burning, for successive generations, in many a dark 
abode of superstition ; and that in a later day, the revelation 
of the Gospel appealed not without effect to the Areopagite of 
Athens, the jailor of Philippi, and the Eoman Proconsul at 
Paphos. He certainly excited a spirit of eager curiosity on 
moral subjects ; as was evidenced in the rise of the schools of 
philosophy to meet the demands of that spirit, and in the moral 
character of the disquisitions pursued in them. But this spirit 
could not have exhausted itself in mere literary discussion. 
There were doubtless the waverings of anxious minds beyond 
the precincts of the schools, to be settled ; there were souls, craving 
after more safe direction of personal conduct than such as the 
world presented, to be satisfied. Such a state of things would 
keep men looking for gospel-truth. Some would feel, as Alci- 
biades is represented by Plato, and Euthydemus by Xenophon, 



HIS EVIDENCE IN FAVOUR OF RELIGION. 435 

after a conversation with Socrates, at a loss how to pray. And 
to such the answer of Socrates, as given by Plato, would very 
indistinctly perhaps, yet not without earnest hope, suggest the 
high thought, that they must patiently wait until they could be 
informed by God himself, as to the proper disposition towards 
God and men ; or until one should come to discipline them — 
to remove the darkness from their eyes, and enable them to 
discern both good and evil. 1 

1 Alcib. ii. p. 150, d. 116x6 odv 5o/cw Ideiv tovtov rbv dvdpoj-rrov ris ecrrw 
trapta-rat. 6 xP<Ws oSros, & Sw/cpares ; 2. Odrds ianp tp /xAa irepi aov, k. t. A. 
/cat n's 6 7rai8e6ao}v ; ^Sierra yap dp jxoi Op. v. p. 100. 



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